About Trailer

Trailer

Trailer, styled trailer – Kultur. Kino. Ruhr., is the monthly culture and cinema magazine for the Ruhr region, published by the Berndt Media-Verlag in Bochum. Founded in November 2001 by Joachim Berndt as a Bochum film art magazine on the occasion of the new Casablanca arthouse cinema, it has grown into the competent culture magazine for the Ruhrgebiet, informing about current films and cultural events in music, stage, dance, art, literature, and education across the region, in print and online.

Overview

The monthly rhythm gives the Ruhr region's cultural life a regular companion: twelve issues a year, each with the film coverage, the event calendar, and the socio-political focus that the magazine's left-liberal orientation shapes. The color-coded sections in the layout guide the readers through the film pages, the music, stage, dance, art, literature, and education coverage, and the monthly focus topic.

The magazine's ethical orientation, in the Wikipedia article's description, is explicit: the principles of the French Enlightenment and the United Nations, with human dignity, joy of life, appreciation of diversity in culture and life plans, a wakeful undogmatic political standpoint, sustainability, responsibility, and reconciliation. The advocacy for the diversity of opinions, views, and attitudes, their confrontation with each other, and the discussion by the readership define the magazine's discursive journalism, with the intervention in local debates as its civic edge.

The partner network with choices and engels gives the monthly focus its cross-regional weight: the three magazines in Cologne, Wuppertal, and the Ruhrgebiet jointly select the socio-politically relevant topics that each issue's Schwerpunkt addresses, in print and online alike.

Trailer is a monthly magazine for film and culture in the Ruhr region. It exists as a print and online version, with the editorial office in the Berndt Media-Verlag in Bochum. The magazine informs about current films and cultural events from the areas of music, stage, dance, art, literature, and education in the Ruhrgebiet. Since 2006, each issue has carried a monthly focus on a socio-politically relevant topic, shared with the partner magazines choices in Cologne and engels in Wuppertal, in both the print and online editions.

The magazine's sections are color-coded in the layout. Its orientation is left-liberal: in its ethics, trailer orients itself on the principles of the French Enlightenment and the United Nations, with human dignity, joy of life, appreciation of diversity in culture and life plans, a wakeful undogmatic political standpoint, sustainability, responsibility, and reconciliation as its keywords. Trailer advocates for the diversity of opinions, views, and attitudes, confronts them with each other, and puts them up for discussion by the readership, with intervention in local debates.

History

The 2001 founding places trailer in the generation of German regional culture magazines that grew with the Ruhr region's cultural transformation: the Casablanca arthouse cinema's December 2001 opening gave the Bochum film scene its new venue, and Berndt's magazine gave it its voice. The Düsseldorf biograph and the Cologne choices, the named models, show the magazine's lineage in the Rhineland's independent cinema and culture press.

The 2004 to 2006 expansion from Bochum to the Ruhrgebiet tracks the region's cultural self-discovery: the gradual extension to surrounding cities, the 2005 introduction of ruhr in the internet address, and the October 2006 renaming of the print edition from Bochum to Ruhrgebiet mark the magazine's growth into the region's culture magazine. The 2005 Literatur in NRW column extended the film magazine's spectrum into literature, the first step of the content expansion that the tenth anniversary greetings celebrate.

The tenth anniversary in 2015 documents the magazine's standing in the region's cultural establishment: the HMKV's artistic director, the Prinz Regent Theater's founder, and the Theater Oberhausen's intendant each praised the magazine's quality, independence, and critical local patriotism. The greetings' shared theme, that the Ruhrgebiet existed before the RUHR.2010 Capital of Culture year and exists after it, captures the magazine's durable regional role.

Trailer was founded as a monthly magazine by Joachim Berndt in November 2001. The occasion was the founding of the Bochum arthouse cinema Casablanca in December 2001. The models were the Düsseldorf cinema magazine biograph and the Cologne magazine choices. Originally, trailer was founded as a pure Bochum film art magazine.

From 2004, the magazine gradually expanded to the entire Ruhr region, first with distribution in surrounding cities. In 2005, the term ruhr was introduced with the internet address. In October 2006, the print edition was renamed from Bochum to Ruhrgebiet. The content spectrum was also expanded, for example in 2005 with the column Literatur in NRW. The magazine celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2015 with congratulations from the region's cultural leaders: Dr. Inke Arns, artistic director of the HMKV, praised the shared high standards, independence, and critical local patriotism; Sibylle Broll-Pape, founder and director of the Prinz Regent Theater, noted the development from cinema magazine to competent culture magazine; and Peter Carp, intendant of Theater Oberhausen, credited the magazine's contribution to perceiving the Ruhrgebiet as a metropolis.

Coverage and Content

The film coverage is the magazine's founding beat: the current films in the Ruhr region's cinemas, from the arthouse houses like the Casablanca to the multiplexes, reviewed and previewed with the film art magazine's eye. The cultural event coverage extends across the performing and visual arts: the music, the stage, the dance, the art, the literature, and the education events that fill the region's theaters, concert halls, museums, and universities.

The monthly Schwerpunkt gives the magazine its thematic journalism: the socio-politically relevant topics that the three partner magazines jointly address, from the local debates that trailer intervenes in to the broader societal questions that the focus essays explore. The shared focus with choices and engels creates a Rhineland-Ruhr editorial conversation that crosses the city boundaries.

The university cooperation with the AKAFOE-Kulturbüro boskop at Ruhr University Bochum connects the magazine to the student cultural scene, while the Lünen Kinofilmfestival cooperation anchors it in the region's film festival calendar. The Literatur in NRW column, running since 2005, keeps the literary coverage as a permanent magazine department.

Trailer covers the Ruhr region's film and cultural life: the current films in the region's cinemas and the cultural events in music, stage, dance, art, literature, and education. The monthly socio-political focus, shared with choices and engels since 2006, gives each issue a thematic depth beyond the event listings, addressing the socially and politically relevant topics that the three partner magazines jointly select.

The Literatur in NRW column, introduced in 2005, extends the coverage to the region's literary life. The cooperations with the Lünen Kinofilmfestival and the AKAFOE cultural office boskop at Ruhr University Bochum anchor the magazine in the region's film and university culture.

Organization and Ownership

Trailer is published by the Berndt Media-Verlag in Bochum, with Joachim Berndt as founder and publisher, the Herausgeber who signed the tenth anniversary greetings. The editorial office sits in the Berndt Media-Verlag in Bochum.

Current editorial team details are not publicly confirmed in the sources reviewed beyond the publisher. The magazine's cooperations include the Kinofilmfestival Lünen and the AKAFOE-Kulturbüro boskop at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

Digital Presence

Trailer-ruhr.de is the magazine's digital home, with the online version carrying the print content and the monthly focus topics. The trailer-geschichte page documents the magazine's history from the 2001 founding to the Ruhrgebiet expansion.

Dedicated apps or podcasts for the trailer brand are not detailed in the sources reviewed; the brand's digital presence rests on its website and the monthly print magazine's film and culture journalism for the Ruhr region.