Seminal German industrial act Einsturzende Neubauten have been recreating the sound of buildings dying for well over two decades now. In 2004 they performed a gig in the ruined shell of the Palast der Republik, the former home of the East German parliament in Berlin, prior to its demolition. Accompanied by a hundred strong choir and their legendary self built metal instruments, the band provided a fitting raucous soundtrack to the end of the formerly imposing structure's life. To celebrate the release of the concert on DVD, the ICA will be screening the film and hosting a Q&A session with Blixa Bargeld, founder member and frontman of the band.

Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin this year, Jasmila Zbanic's debut feature explores the ways in which people come to terms with a terrible past -- when that past is not only recent, but continues to be a part of their everyday lives. Esma (Mirjana Karanovic) is one of thousands of single mothers in Sarajevo, a legacy of the Bosnian War -- her 12-year-old daughter Sara believes her father was a shaheed war hero, a fact that Esma vaguely avoids discussing. Amid a seemingly ordinary routine of factory work, nightclub waitressing and early-teen tantrums exists a parallel life of widows' support groups, abandoned bombed buildings and mass-grave identifications. When a need for official documents on her patriality cannot be fulfilled, Sara compels Esma to confront their family history and reveal her long-held secret, hopefully the beginning of a move towards a more optimistic future for them both.

NB: Following the screening there will be a panel discussion on the issues raised in the film. Esma's Secret is released in London on 15/12/06. Other films of note released during this holiday season are: Deep Water (15/12/06), Not Here To Be Loved (05/01/07), Ghosts (12/01/07) and The Last King Of Scotland (12/01/07).

The London Musicians Collective is a loosely knit co-operative responsible for some of the most ambitious new music projects in the capital, including Resonance FM and their eponymous annual music festival. The festival aims to bring together some of the key figures in improvised and electro-acoustic music who share the stage with new practitioners. This year is no exception with, amongst others, Otomo Yoshihide, Bernard Parmegiani and Keith Rowe rubbing shoulders with younger cohorts Tom Chant, Andrea Neumann and Tomas Korber. It's a rare chance to catch the idiosyncratic spirit of British musical experimentalism on such a big scale and also see some of the most adventurous new lights from the international scene.

NB: the festival runs for three nights on 15/12/06, 16/12/06 and 17/12/06.

OK all you minimal fans out there, here comes one last event to get you into the holiday spirit and tide you over until NYE. Sud Electronic's Yuletide Knees Up is the first time anyone in the UK will glimpse a line-up of Dial Records' finest rhythm waxers as they present, among other treats, a sneak preview of Pantha du Prince's new album The Bliss, due out in early 2007. Lawrence / Sten (aka Peter M Kersten) and Carsten Jost will also make appearances along with the usual suspects keeping time in room two. For anyone who just can't wait until Friday, or just can't stand leaving the good beats behind in the club when you go home, Sud's catalogue is here at last... and we just can't resist... Yule love it!

NB: for more minimal action check out the Minus night (Richie Hawtin, Magda and Gaiser) at The End on 30/12/06.

In 1967 Francis Chichester completed the first single handed circumnavigation of the world, although he did make one stop in Sydney. A race was then immediately organised to find the first sailor to circumnavigate the world without stopping. The final list consisted of eight sailors and an idiosyncratic Englishman called Donald Crowhurst. Crowhurst was the underdog, a weekend sailor with an inferior boat and it soon became clear that this wasn't a nautical fairytale. Realising that his boat wouldn't make it around Cape Horn, Crowhurst decided to hang around the Atlantic for a few months with the intention of slipping in behind the other competitors as they sailed for home. Of course it would backfire. This truly engrossing documentary interviews family and friends and features fascinating footage that Crowhurst filmed of himself on the boat. It shows a man slowly buried by the weight of expectation on his shoulders.

NB: the screening is followed by a Q&A with co-director Louise Osmond and producer John Smithson. Deep Water is released in London on 15/12/06. Other films of note released during this holiday season are: Esma's Secret (15/12/06), Not Here To Be Loved (05/01/07), Ghosts (12/01/07) and The Last King Of Scotland (12/01/07).

Widely-respected Japanese web radio station Samurai FM celebrates Christmas at Herbal this year with a line-up reflecting the deeper end of electronica. The London-Tokyo station has become known for acting as a portal for electronic music into and out of Japan, but this event focuses on leading lights of the London and Berlin techno and electro scenes. Headlining the first room is Thomas Fehlmann, representing Berlin-based Laboratory Instinct but more familiar as floating member of mid-'90s chart-botherers The Orb. Samurai's resident Maxxrelax and Laboratory Instinct label boss LYO25 also play in the main room, while the second room -- geared towards electro and beats -- features Depth Charge acolyte Richard Sen alongside Phonica's Simon Rigg, both of whom can be guaranteed to have you dancing holes in the soles of your shoes before you can say "mince pie".

London clubbing behemoth Fabric is building up to its New Year's Eve jump off with some splendid weekend line ups throughout December. This Saturday sees Canadian techno imprint Wagon Repair take over the main room with live performances from Cobblestone Jazz and Mathew Jonson, and DJ support from Mike Shannon. Cobblestone Jazz -- comprising of Danuel Tate, Tyger Dhula and Jonson -- have recently released one of the best techno 12"s of 2006 with "India In Me", and their one-take recording method should translate well to the live stage. Expect room one to reverberate with throbbing melodic techno all night. Elsewhere, Rub N Tug, New York's dons of dusty disco re edits are playing in room three alongside Crispin Dior and Ben Fat Trucker from Gucci Soundsystem, whilst veteran of the UK techno scene Billy Nasty takes over room two keeping it the way of his surname.

NB: for more minimal action check out the Minus night (Richie Hawtin, Magda and Gaiser) at The End on 30/12/06.

Christmas in clubland can be a tawdry experience, some tinsel wrapped around a sub Page 3 stunna on a flyer justifying a price hike to pay for the promoter's January holiday. Luckily hope is at hand in the shape of the Hot Sauce Xmas Fete, which has whole heartedly embraced the spirit of Christmas. Running from mid-afternoon, this genre mashing spectacular not only features some of the best new acts to have appeared this year -- including the Grace Jones meets Blondie disco-punk-funk of Ebony Bones, the Oi! punk stylings of Methodist Centre, New York rock-stars in waiting Black Daniel and the electro hip-hop of Miss Odd Kidd and The Cock 'n' Bull Kid -- but also takes in such festive oddities as LJ Kruzer's Electro Carol Service and a potentially blasphemous burlesque nativity courtesy of sonic misfits Le Couteau Jaune. Meanwhile in the Pink Bar, Oxfam turn vinyl collecting into a good deed with their annual Christmas Record Fair and raffle.

The combination of tuba and congas would seem to most people less like a musical combination that would actually work and more like an experiment in staging, but in the hands of master musicians Oren Marshall and Maurizio Ravalico it takes on another dimension entirely. It's a bit like one of those revelations, say when you hear electric guitar and kazoo or steel drums and harp; it's something you'd never have expected to succeed, but once you've heard it, it completely changes your perception of the instruments concerned. The great orchestrators of 20th century music such as Bartok, Messiaen and Nunes were intrigued by exactly these types of combinations, which have since been termed "meta-instruments" as a result of the fact that, once combined, the timbres of both were so much more evocative that the possibilities presented by either alone. Could this be the start of another radical new evolution in our orchestral language?

It was around the '60s when humans started completely abandoning musical structures in the name of spontaneity, experimentation and freedom, although since then computers have been catching up... Evan Parker, a pioneer and veteran of the free improvisation scene and no stranger to live electronics, is joined by George Lewis, improviser and computer musician, and also the creators of various live algorithmic processes. Lewis' Voyager will be performed alongside other improvisational systems, including those by Tim Blackwell and Michael Young, creators of the Swarm systems. But will the computer systems be able to keep up with some of the greats of free improvisation?

After the success of their summer boat party the Acid On Sea crew have finally come ashore and joined forces with award winning digital music distributor Bleep.com. In fine pirate style they're taking over the Grade II listed building the Salisbury Hotel and filling it with all manner of scurvy dogs from Italy's Marco Passarani to Detroit's Jimmy Edgar via home grown heroes like Digital Mystikz and Si Begg. Expect a glorious mish-mash of everything from electronica to dubstep via techno and even some of the more interesting indie sounds that have emerged this year. And to get us in the Xmas spirit there's even a raffle with the promise of some choice booty to be taken away.

Belle de jour is a flower that blooms only by day, just as the glacial yet erotic surgeon's wife Severine, played by Catherine Deneuve, is available to the clientele of Madame Anais' high class Parisian brothel only during the afternoons until 5pm. After hours the perfect and calm life of a bourgeois housewife is played out with deadpan humour, silently laughing at the social mores of her husband and guests as well as herself. Bunuel's adaptation of Joseph Kessel's novel sounds shocking and perverse in print; in reality (such as it exists under Bunuel's surrealist style) the subtle move towards the almost thrilleresque ending, featuring gold toothed gangsters and philandering acquaintances alongside Severine's own masochistic fantasy sequences, is a masterpiece and one of the Spanish director's best.

NB: Belle de jour screens at the NFT on 29/12/06 (2:30, 6:30 and 8:45pm) and on 30/12/06 (4:15, 6:30 and 8:45pm). Films of note released during this holiday season are: Esma's Secret (15/12/06), Deep Water (15/12/06), Not Here To Be Loved (05/01/07), Ghosts (12/01/07) and The Last King Of Scotland (12/01/07).

The Issst crew are going all out this New Year's Eve, putting on a party in a secret Shoreditch venue, installing a rather noisy soundsystem and inviting Tiefschwarz, Simian Mobile Disco and Klaxons down to play records. 2006 has seen discussion on new rave garner column space in publications ranging from the NME to music blogs to the Sunday broadsheets, and Klaxons and Simian Mobile Disco have been heralded by some as the day-glo pinups of the new rave movement. When you manage to put all the hyperbole to one side, there is actually some good music to be found. Tiefschwarz are extremely talented producers, remixers and DJs. This should be a very entertaining way to see in the New Year.

OTHER NYE OPTIONS

Multivitamins / Safari Electronique / Run @ Fluid (9pm - very late)
Krikor (live), Kabale Und Liebe (live), Arnaud le Texier...

Wrong Meeting @ T Bar (9pm - 6am)
Andrew Weatherall, Ivan Smagghe and Two Lone Swordsmen (live)

Lost Vagueness @ The Coronet (9pm - 6am)
The Night of the Prince or the Pauper

An all Kiwi line-up hailing the essence of drone / doom music at the ideal place: a warehouse. Lucidly baptised as [no.zealand], the highlight is on the first London performance by one of the leading gems of the underground scene, Birchville Cat Motel, with his analogue looping noises and spacious sounds. The one-man group formed by Cambell Kneale has releases on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace!, Last Visible Dog and other undisclosed DIY / CDRs labels. Having toured extensively worldwide he has collaborated with the likes of Tony Conrad, Lee Ranaldo amongst others. Also part of Black Boned Angel and Ming, he runs the label Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. Peter Wright, a London-based New Zealander, is a representative of gentle guitar-based drones. Live, he utilises a combination of field recordings and found sound with an open tuned 12 string electric guitar. The opening act will be by Alex Mein Smith and his analogue complex structure.

When your daily life consists of removing possessions from strangers' homes it's no surprise that melancholy weighs heavy on your heart. Jean-Claude (Patrick Chesnais) is a huissier de la justice (bailiff) and not only blighted by his thankless career but also by the irksome responsibility he has to his nursing home bound father who berates him every time he visits. For brief respite he gazes every day at a tango class that takes place across the street until one day he plucks up the courage to sign up for lessons. A fellow dancer, Francoise (Anne Consigny), remembers him from her childhood and over the weeks they become entwined in a blossoming relationship that Jean-Claude could only dream of so late in his life. It's a beautifully acted love story that shows how life can be rescued in the most unlikely of ways.

NB: Not Here To Be Loved is released in London on 05/01/07. Other films of note released during this holiday season are: Esma's Secret (15/12/06), Deep Water (15/12/06), Ghosts (12/01/07) and The Last King Of Scotland (12/01/07).

Is it folk? Electronica? Poetry? Art? Dexter Bentley, of Resonance FM's Hello Goodbye show brings together a night of the unclassifiable, headed by Momus (aka Nick Currie), transatlantic veteran of electronic music, poetry, and maybe even intellectual hip-hop. His music has taken many twists and turns over the years, but should certainly engage your brain. Also joining him on the bill are James III & The Courtesan bringing electronic music out from behind the table, with their strap-on instruments -- for this performance they'll be using them to cut both audio and video to pieces. Complete with the Skull Defekts from Sweden and Bristol's experimental folk collaboration Jeremy Smoking Jacket, it should be both a noisy and pretty affair.

NB: Momus also plays the Spitz on 04/01/07 with support (?) from No Bra.

The projector with teeth returns! The 4th Halloween Short Film Festival features an eclectic programme of new shorts, some feature-length short films linking in to the Death to Short Film Manifesto published in Time Out (2006), retrospectives of filmmakers, live bands and DJ sets. It doesn't end there: in conjunction with Shooting People and Revolver, screenings of the Destricted short films that were judged by Kids director Larry Clarke will screen with a pole dancing show in the ICA bar. Awards include the VX Auteur Theory Award, the Lo-Budget award presented by The Priscillas, who will also be playing a live set, the LUX award, the D.o.t.K. award hosted by Club Motherfucker, the Fortean Times award, Time Out London film award and the Dead by Dawn horror award. Unsure and chaotic times ahead; London loves it.

NB: the Halloween Short Film Festival runs from 06/01/07 till 15/01/07.

The wildest criticism of Nick Broomfield is that he manipulates his work so that it becomes as much about his own bumbling persona as it does the documentary's actual subject. Ghosts deviates from this formula by firstly taking Broomfield away from the viewfinder and secondly by making it only his second fictionised film -- after 1989's under seen Diamond Skulls -- centring on the iniquitous deaths of 21 cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay two years ago. His unlikely protagonist is impoverished Chinese mother (Ai Qin Lin) who borrows $25,000 to pay a criminal gang to smuggle her into the UK. When she struggles to repay the debt she is forced to choose between a massage parlour and cockle picking. Without hindsight it must have seemed like an easy decision. The film trails her story, and that of the other victims, right up to the compelling finale which is as ghoulish as anything you're ever likely to see.

NB: the screening is followed by a Q&A with director Nick Broomfield. Ghosts is released in London on 12/01/07. Other films of note released during this holiday season are: Esma's Secret (15/12/06), Deep Water (15/12/06), Not Here To Be Loved (05/01/07) and The Last King Of Scotland (12/01/07).

Relationships always need tending, all relationships... be it lover to lover, parent to child, friend to friend, teacher to student, even that of citizen to state. Ronald Dworkin, professor at NYU and UCL in Law and leading moral and legal philosopher, is currently concerned with the state of our representative democracy. Certainly our Tony -- Blair that is -- and W, across the pond, have pushed us into a war most do not want. The question, then, is who are they representing? Hence it is perhaps an appropriate time for Dworkin to be speaking in public on just this topic: our "dumbed-down politics", his words. That is, for democracies to be vibrant, their principles need to be argued, discussed, tested...and who better to argue for our rights than the man himself!

NB: Ronald Dworkin will be in conversation with John Dunn.

A twisted, quasi Heart Of Darkness, this film tells the story of Nicholas Garrigan, a youthful, recently qualified doctor with a taste for adventure and an eye for the ladies, who sets up in '70s Uganda and is unwittingly drawn into the dark heart of Idi Amin's corrupt political tornado. Forest Whitaker's portrayal of the dictator's overwhelming magnetism, energy and power is incredible, and watching his descent into megalomaniacal lunacy, driven by his burning egomania and manipulative aides, is fascinating. But the fictional relationship between Garrigan and Amin is where the film packs its punches -- seduced by favour, power and perks the doctor trades in his moral backbone, and only too late realises the error of his ways. One could almost say it's Shakespearian. Compelling post-Xmas anti-schmaltz.

NB: The Last King Of Scotland is released in London on 12/01/07. Other films of note released during this holiday season are: Esma's Secret (15/12/06), Deep Water (15/12/06), Not Here To Be Loved (05/01/07) and Ghosts (12/01/07).

In adapting Virginia Woolf's The Waves for the stage, Katie Mitchell faced a challenge: the author admitted "I am writing to a rhythm and not to a plot". But, she has achieved a brilliant production, where the company evokes the book's prose-poetry with multi-sensory media. The actors trace the lives of six friends from childhood to youth and middle age by reciting streams of consciousness and using video cameras to film each other's snapshots. These are projected onto a luminous central screen and framed by interludes of the sea, reflecting Woolf's aim for time to be "telescoped into one lucid channel". The method is particularly effective in pictures of an idealistic character, which unify aspirations, and images where dreams of objects console fears, as when "the swallow dipped her wings in dark pools on the other side of the world". In this talk, Mitchell illuminates this wonderful performance.

NB: in this NT Platform Katie Mitchell discusses the production (Waves runs till 08/02/07).

This year the 29th London International Mime Festival will bring another sparkling array of contemporary visual theatre, with performances by rising stars as well as more established names in the fields of circus arts, puppetry, physical theatre and live art. Among them discover Jean-Baptiste Andre and Mathurin Bolze from France. Or if you are a puppetry or animation fan don't miss a rare chance to see Faulty Optic's bizarre brand of mechanical theatre. From Britain don't miss Al Seed or Ockham's Razor. And there's work from Spain, Switzerland, the US with Rainpan 43 (members of the wonderful Pig Iron Theatre Company) to start the year with a bang. And if only to stop any rumours, there is a host of post-show talks, seminars and workshops with plenty to say or mime!

NB: Mime Fest runs from 13/01/07 till 28/01/07.

Late December this year marks the 20th anniversary of the early death of Andrei Arsenevitch Tarkovsky, Russia's greatest filmmaker since Eisenstein -- and amid the retrospective screenings of his work nestles this intimate portrait by avant-garde documentarist Chris Marker. Made during the time that the dying Tarkovsky was completing The Sacrifice -- his final film -- Marker weaves an insightful path through the self-exiled director's films to pay a fond tribute to his friend and fellow filmmaker. Using clips, journals, photos and footage of the making of The Sacrifice, the film highlights recurring themes and images, and drawing parallels between Tarkovsky's life and his films.

NB: catch the complete Andrei Tarkovsky retrospective, which runs at the Cine Lumiere from 13/01/07 till 25/01/07.

As a reluctant precursor of Neurotic Realism, Dexter Dalwood has made a specialty out of scrutinising historical events and figures. What happens if you subtract the participants from a past event and then render it in the style of Bacon, Picasso or Richter? What if Jacques Louis David's Napoleon Crossing The St Bernard Pass was a film rather than a painting? In conjunction with the Recent History exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, Artprojx is presenting a screening of 1800 introduced by the artist, who chose David Cronenberg's A History Of Violence as accompanying feature to his short film, which depicts the transmutation of a military painting into the climactic scene of a cinematic production. Perhaps formalist revisionism would be more appropriate a category through which to approach Dalwood's work.

NB: 1800 screens at the Prince Charles Cinema before all main feature films from 15/01/07 till 21/01/07. Recent History is on view at Gagosian Gallery from 14/12/06 till 02/02/07.

As Peter Cook and Christina Hawley did with the Bartlett and UEL respectively, Nigel Coates has taken considerable teaching nous from the AA and reinvented a school that, just a few years ago, was languishing in the pedagogical wastelands. With seductive yet cerebral lecture programmes such as "Cybaroque" and now "Babylon:don", Coates has achieved at the RCA what his fellow AA cohorts didn't across town: to sex up theory by assembling pop-cultural figures such as Janet Street-Porter and Mourad Mazouz to comment on the city and architecture at large. In the third of five debates, the lazy distinction between urban "theory" and "design" is questioned: "Can the critique and the proposal be combined?" Fuelling this debate are LSE's Richard Sennett, who has written widely on how people of difference (white / black, rich / poor, Christian / Muslim) can co-exist in an urban environment, FOA's Farshid Moussavi and Joe Kerr from the RCA itself.

NB: this event is free but tickets must be booked in advance and are available one month before the debate (call 020.7590.4567 or send an email to architecture@rca.ac.uk).

The Paris Review's brilliant collection of interviews (taken from issues dating back to the magazine's launch in 1953) is certainly getting the literati sweaty with excitement. Conversations featured include those with Dorothy Parker, Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Wilder, Hemmingway, Truman Capote and Joan Didion -- amongst a veritable feast of the great and the good of the wordy glitterati. Editor of the feted magazine Philip Gourevitch and Brit-lit darling Zadie Smith convene at the ICA for a talk to launch the collection in the UK. Up for discussion is the legacy left left by the powerful exchanges transcribed in the book, which coaxed out the personal thoughts and emotions of some very wary, guarded and private characters.

Woody Allen films -- people either love 'em, or think they are a perfect example of whining neurotic Americans. Manhattan, however, seems to transcend this divide: somehow, the perfectly matched Gershwin soundtrack, the gorgeous black and white cinematography and the script -- a bittersweet mix of funny and poignant -- justifies its enduring popularity. Allen plays his familiar neurotic self as he ping-pongs between the women in his life: Muriel Hemingway, Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep. But the real love-object of the film is New York City itself -- not in a tourist board-wonky-geography way, where the Empire State Building is miraculously located one block from the Statue of Liberty (which is of course just in front of Times Square...) -- but as a beautiful, slightly mysterious although strangely familiar place: somewhere you feel that you yourself have once been, and you seem to remember hearing Rhapsody In Blue playing...

NB: Manhattan screens at the ICA till 30/12/06. For Woody Allen fans catch Zelig, which screens at the NFT on 19/12/06 and 21/12/06. Films of note released during this holiday season are: Esma's Secret (15/12/06), Deep Water (15/12/06), Not Here To Be Loved (05/01/07), Ghosts (12/01/07) and The Last King Of Scotland (12/01/07).

Putting aside the "conflict of interest" controversy surrounding Tate Britain's acquisition of Chris Ofili's work, walking along the darkened corridor of The Upper Room (1999-2002), illuminated by small pools of yellow light takes you on a journey not to be missed. This is the space that has been specially designed in collaboration with architect David Adjaye to house 13 individually lit paintings expressing Ofili's autograph use of energised psychedelic colour and elephant dung. Each work reveals the figure of a rhesus macaque, a primate that humans share a remarkable percentage of their DNA with (99% as documented in the literature accompanying the work). Each simian figure is painted in a different vivid hue and sits imposed over layers of tropical foliage shimmering with glitter, resin and gold leaf. The jewel-like paintings glow in this specially built reverential space creating allusions to spirituality, worship, the exotic, civilisation and magic.

NB: runs till 01/01/07.

The French sculptor Auguste Rodin was a truly modern artist. This retrospective surveys his achievements in an exhibition of over 300 pieces from the Musee Rodin in Paris and his home in Meudon, including large versions of his famous works The Kiss, The Thinker and The Gates of Hell. Such sculptures reveal what he is best known for: his universal ability to express what it is to be human. However, tiny clay sketches and lyrical drawings of his models suggest a new angle to his oeuvre: he was a feminist who recognised the psychological complexities of women. Furthermore, he developed a warm relationship with Britain: he first visited in the summer of 1881 and his works were soon exhibited in the RA and collected by its president Lord Leighton. This show pays tribute to this Entente Cordiale through period photos and sculptures, never before exhibited outside France.

NB: runs till 01/01/07.