BERLIN: It’s a love that was born in a cinema in 1950s Cold War Berlin and that has been nourished for over six decades by taking in at least a movie a day together.
At this week’s Berlin film festival, Erika and Ulrich Gregor, now in their 80s, are absolute fixtures.
Year after year, they can be spotted gingerly making their way, arm in arm, from theater to theater to catch as many screenings each day as they can.
“We’ve watched thousands and thousands of films together,” Ulrich, 85, told AFP in an interview at the Arsenal cinema they helped found.
“We’re curious and we want to be on the cutting edge, so to speak. So we watch five movies a day (at a festival), sometimes even six. And when we’re not watching movies, we’re talking about them.”
It’s that kind of shared passion that the Gregors say has kept their relationship thriving after nearly 60 years of marriage.
The pair met as students at West Berlin’s Free University in 1957, when Ulrich was hosting a film evening.
“It was ‘People on Sunday’,” a 1930 German silent film, “and there was one woman who had very strong views,” he said.
“Everybody loved the movie but I thought it was sexist and said so,” recalled Erika, 83.
“There was a stormy debate but I wouldn’t back down. When it was over I walked out and the moderator (Ulrich) ran after me and said ‘Please come next time’ and promised to show a film that was more humanistic. And he did, it was terrific.”
She was immediately taken with Ulrich, who stands two heads taller than his petite wife.
“I thought he was the cleverest of all of them. And I think cleverness is something wonderful,” Erika said, adding: “Especially for men, who in general are not very smart.”
She ended up joining the film club’s board.
Ulrich returned from the Cannes festival one year raving about Polish directors such as Andrzej Wajda and Andrzej Munk.
Erika suggested they start showcasing cinema from behind the Iron Curtain — a controversial move with capitalist West Berlin on the front lines of geopolitical tensions.
“We hopped on a Vespa and rode to the Polish military mission in East Berlin and rang the bell,” she said.
“We said ‘hello, we’re students and we’d like to show some Polish films’. They were quite surprised and offered us vodka. But they finally agreed and said we could come back and pick up the films.”
Ulrich said that because of “strong anti-communist prejudices” they had to fight hostile administrators to show Eastern European films, but Erika’s more impulsive style and his diplomatic skills “complement each other in a really special way.”
“Together no one can beat us because we’re always stronger.”
The Gregors married in 1960 — a year before the Berlin Wall went up — and soon started a family. But it didn’t stop their nearly obsessive moviegoing.
“It wasn’t easy because we had two children. We were lucky because they could have hated the cinema — it took their parents away from them. But the kids got used to it and we raised them that way,” he said.
“It was a different time, when I see how mothers parent today,” Erika said.
“When I needed to go to the cinema I told them ‘I trust you so be good and Mama will be home again in a few hours’. Eventually we started taking them with us to the movies.”
That meant bringing the children to film festivals as well: Venice, Locarno, Moscow and the biggest of all, Cannes, which they still attend every year.
The Gregors collaborated on writing about film history in books and articles, founded an arthouse cinema and ran a section of the Berlin film festival showcasing avant-garde movies that is still going strong.
They were early champions of filmmakers such as Wong Kar-wai, Theo Angelopoulos, Aki Kaurismaki and Belgium’s two-time Cannes winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.
“Everything we did ended up being a shared project — you couldn’t draw a dividing line between my work and hers,” Ulrich said.
For all their love of cinema — and each other — both say that it’s a difficult emotion to capture on film.
“What’s love? It’s respect, it’s affection, it’s trust. But the love stories we love on screen are all tragic,” Erika said, citing Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” “The Cry” by Michelangelo Antonioni and Yasujiro Ozu’s “Tokyo Story” among their favorites.
Ulrich said as much as they both enjoy a satisfying ending, there’s still nothing quite like the promise held in the start of a film.
“When the cinema goes dark and an image appears, it’s a primal feeling that never fades. You’re electrified every time.”
A movie a day for 60 years: Cinema sustains a Berlin love
A movie a day for 60 years: Cinema sustains a Berlin love
In the light of Andalusia: Luis Olaso’s new body of work
- Luis Olaso transforms Andalusian landscapes and light into abstract art, creating canvases that reflect culture, nature, and the artist’s inner state
- Each work in ‘Photosynthesis’ acts as a sensory and meditative portrait — an immersion into the Andalusian experience and the artist’s emotional universe
DUBAI: Spanish artist Luis Olaso is presenting “Photosynthesis,” his new exhibition, until March 9 at the JD Malat Gallery in Downtown Dubai. The series marks a turning point in his career, born from his recent move to Cadiz, in Andalusia, where the sun, light, and Mediterranean landscapes have profoundly transformed his practice.
For Olaso, relocating to southern Spain was not merely a change of scenery but an immersion into a culture and environment that nourishes his art at every moment.
“It’s very important for me because this is the first exhibition I have created in my new studio … I built it in the middle of the garden, surrounded by nature, fruit trees and olive trees, with a fantastic landscape. The influence of Andalusia and the colors of that place are the driving force behind my work,” said Olaso.
Located at the heart of an estate surrounded by olive, almond, and orange trees, his studio is designed to allow nature to enter the creative process both physically and psychologically. Yet, rather than depicting these elements directly, Olaso absorbs them as a sensory catalyst: Each color, texture, and gesture becomes the expression of a lived moment.
“Even when I work with plants or flowers, I’m not aiming for literal representation; they are vehicles to express abstract metaphors of myself and the moment I’m living while creating the work,” he said.
His artistic process is both spontaneous and meditative. Olaso often works on several canvases simultaneously to free himself from the pressure of the “perfect painting,” allowing intuition to guide his brush. Music — the Spanish band Triana and 1970s psychedelic flamenco — plays a central role in his focus and inner connection.
“Painting, for me, is similar to meditation. I need to be in that precise moment and feel connected with myself,” said Olaso.
“Photosynthesis” also reflects a profound cultural and artistic dialogue. The artist’s work draws from Spanish tradition— with references to Antoni Tapies and Manolo Millares — as well as major international abstract movements, including American gestural abstraction and the San Francisco Bay Area Figurative Movement.
This meeting point between abstraction, culture, and emotion transforms each canvas into a portrait of a lived instant and the artist’s inner state.
After Dubai, Olaso is expected to present a solo exhibition in Madrid in March 2026, followed by another solo exhibition in Helsinki in April. An art fair is scheduled for September, with additional fairs planned throughout the year, notably with the JD Malat Gallery.
These milestones illustrate his universal approach to art, deeply rooted in a specific cultural context: the light, color, and sensory memory of Andalusia. With “Photosynthesis,” the artist offers viewers an experience in which painting becomes a mirror of the self, an emotional journey, and an encounter with a singular place.
