Goethe-Institut Toronto

📚 New Books at the Media Lounge!

Looking for your next great read? A selection of new books has just arrived in the Media Lounge and is now available to browse and borrow.

📍 Goethe-Institut Toronto
🕘Media Lounge: Monday–Thursday: 10:00 AM–4:00 PM

🎬 We reviewed it at the Berlinale in February. Last week, it became Canada's Oscar submission: Nina Roza 🐻🇩🇪🇨🇦🇺🇸

At , we followed Nina Roza during its Berlinale competition run. Directed by Geneviève Dulude-De Celles, the film went on to win the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay under jury president Wim Wenders.

Now, Nina Roza has been selected as Canada's official submission for Best International Feature at the 99th Academy Awards. Félicitations!

📖 Read the review → bit.ly/4wSbKai



Image courtesy Berlinale: Min Bahadur Bham, Geneviève Dulude-de Celle. Nina Roza - Competition, Silver Bear for Best Screenplay, Feb 21, 2026

A big year for Germany at , with 7 Oscar nominees and outstanding talent in town. Thank you to all our creatives and partners, from to and from to . More to come!

🌳 Culture, climate, care.

How can art help us listen to a changing planet?

Join hybrid artist as he connects art, science, ecology and ancestral knowledge in the context of Berlin media artist Christina Kubisch's sound installation The Conference of Trees.

📅 Sept 22, 2026
🕕 6–7 PM
📍 Goethe Space, Toronto
🎟️ Register via Eventbrite → linktree in bio

Discover projects spanning the Amazon rainforest, climate memory, bird migration, and endangered cultural heritage—and explore how art can reshape our relationship with the living world and .

Part of Call & Response and our multi-venue climate cultures

Faisal Anwar appears in the context of a multi-venue exploration of climate cultures by the Goethe-Institut Toronto.

Part of the Goethe-Institut Toronto 2026 cultural resilience program (re)Open Minds: Adapting to the Future

Ticket raffle! Courtesy of our friends , we have 2 pairs of tickets to give away for:

September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill – Restoration Screening + Performance

A fusion of film, theatre and concert performance that reimagines the music of German composer Kurt Weill, whose songs bridged opera, cabaret, and popular music with piercing social and emotional insight.

Featuring Lou Reed, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Charlie Haden, Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet, Mary Margaret O’Hara, William S. Burroughs, and more.

📍 Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema
📅 Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 8:00 PM

🎤 Plus a Q&A with director Larry Weinstein, moderated by film critic Jason Gorber.

📩 DM us for your chance to win! 🎟️🍀

The raffle closes on September 21, 2026, at 11:59 PM. Two winners will each receive a pair of tickets and will be contacted via Instagram DM.

Join us at the Goethe‑Institut Toronto for our next Read Aloud & Crafting for Children event on September 19!

This time, we’ll read Linas Leuchtturm, an enchanting picture book about kindness, friendship, and helping others. Lina lives in a lighthouse by the sea and spends her days caring for the animals around her. When a storm destroys the lighthouse beacon, an unexpected group of friends comes together to help make the lighthouse shine once again.

📚 What to expect:
- A read-aloud session of Linas Leuchtturm in German
- A heartwarming story for children aged 4+
- A creative crafting activity inspired by the book
- An enjoyable afternoon of stories, creativity, and imagination

✨ This event brings children and families together through storytelling, creativity, and cultural discovery. At its heart is a simple but meaningful message: the good you bring into the world comes back to you.

📅 September 19, 2026
🕑 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
📍 Goethe‑Institut Toronto

Recommended for children aged 4 and up.

Register via Eventbrite → linktree in bio

Join us at the Goethe‑Institut Toronto for the next edition of Media Mingle: Music in the 2020s! 🎵

Discover the artists, songs, and trends shaping Germany's music scene today. From pop and hip-hop to indie and electronic music, explore the sounds that define a new generation of German music.

🎧 What to expect:
- Discover contemporary German artists and music
- Watch selected music videos
- Follow along with German and English lyrics
- Share your thoughts with fellow attendees

✨ This event brings people together through music, cultural discovery, and conversation. Whether you're learning German or simply curious about today's music trends, this is a great opportunity to experience contemporary Germany through sound.

No German language skills required, just bring your curiosity!

📅 September 17, 2026
🕕 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
📍 Goethe‑Institut Toronto

Register via Eventbrite → linktree in bio



Photo credit: John Matychuk © Unsplash

Join us at the Goethe‑Institut Toronto for the Canadian premiere of The Conference of Trees by Christina Kubisch.

Part sound installation, part listening experience, The Conference of Trees invites visitors to engage with nature in an entirely new way. Five bonsai trees, each with its own unique soundscape, create an immersive environment where listening becomes an act of discovery.

Originally conceived in 1988 as a response to environmental destruction and political indifference toward nature, Kubisch's installation transforms field recordings into whispers, rustles, songs, and murmurs, encouraging us to reflect on our relationship with the natural world.

Through sound, space and participation, The Conference of Trees invites visitors to slow down, listen closely and experience nature from a new perspective.

📅 September 9 – October 23, 2026
📍 Goethe‑Institut Toronto
🎟 Free admission

Part of (re)Open Minds: Adapting to the Future



courtesy C. Kubisch

This year's winners of the High School German Contests in Ontario and Manitoba, Emily from University of Toronto Schools and Caio from River East Collegiate, had a fantastic time at a two-week youth camp at the Alpine Centre Obertauern in Salzburger Land, sponsored by the Goethe-Institut.

It was a unique opportunity to meet and connect with German learners from all over the world, improve their language skills, experience Austrian culture and enjoy the breathtaking Alpine landscape.

Congratulations, Emily and Caio! ⛰

What makes you stronger in the face of challenges?

Goethe asked artist Lisa Hirmer (Canada/Germany/Mexico) to think about the guiding question of the Goethe-Institut Toronto’s year-long project (re)Open Minds: Adapting to the Future.

Throughout the year, we are sharing Lisa’s seasonal images and thoughts as impulses to consider our own cultural resilience in times of converging crises.

☝Let us know where and how you draw strengths.

Lisa Hirmer:
🌃“From nocturnal ecologies I’ve learned about strength that comes from the quiet, the tiny, and the barely seen. In a world that privileges the brightly lit, the vision-centred, the human-oriented, spending time in the dark of night reveals a world full of ultraviolet vision, ultrasonic communications, and scent-perception sensitive to single molecules. It is not a world of deprivation but rather something richly alive and essential to the health of diurnal ecologies. A reminder that strength is not always easily seen.”

Lisa Hirmer is an artist concerned with the collective nature of being. Spanning photography, sculpture, installation, social practice, community collaboration and writing, her work explores collective relationships both within human communities and between humans and the more-than-human-world. Her work has been shown at Art Gallery of Ontario, Queens Museum, Flux Factory, and many more, and she has held residencies with Arts House Melbourne, Santa Fe Art Institute, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation among others.

Part of the program (re)Open Minds: Adapting to the Future
Presented by the Goethe-Institut Toronto
Under the auspices of Prof. Gesche Joost, President of the Goethe-Institut
Curated by Jutta Brendemühl & Sanjay Khanna



Image Credit: Lisa Hirmer, off milkweed, moon bounced sun, 2024, photograph. First show at Fondation Grantham, Saint-Edmond-de-Grantham, Quebec (Canada). Created at Moth Garden, a garden for nocturnal pollinators created in Guelph, Ontario (Canada) in collaboration with Christina Kingsbury.