The Homage section of the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival will be dedicated to French film and stage actor Isabelle Huppert, who will be awarded an Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement. In conjunction with the Award Ceremony on February 15, 2022, at the Berlinale Palast, the festival will screen as a Berlinale Special GalaÀ propos de Joan (About Joan, dir: Laurent Larivière). Huppert is often seen as one of the most versatile actors in the world and has played an impressive range of characters in almost 150 cinema and television productions.
Isabelle Huppert has been closely linked with the film festival for many years and has starred in seven Competition films to date. She was first a guest in Berlin with La vengeance d’une femme (A Woman’s Revenge, dir: Jacques Doillon). Director François Ozon cast her in his dark musical comedy 8 Femmes (8 Women) as an unprepossessing woman who emerges in the end as a confident beauty. The ensemble cast was awarded a Silver Bear for outstanding artistic accomplishment. In L’Avenir (Things to Come), she also plays a woman re-discovering her freedom as a philosophy teacher in a failing marriage. Director Mia Hansen-Løve won the Silver Bear as Best Director for the film.
Berlinale directors Carlo Chatrian, left, and Mariette Rissenbeek
“We are proud to welcome Isabelle Huppert back to the festival,” say Berlinale directors Mariette and Carlo Chatrian, “the Honorary Golden Bear may seem like a natural progression in a career without equal since Isabelle Huppert is one of the few artists recognized with acting awards at all major film festivals. But Isabelle Huppert is more than a celebrated actor — she is an uncompromising artist who doesn’t hesitate to take risks and flout mainstream trends. Awarding her our most prestigious prize is to accentuate cinema as an art form, independent and unconditional. We often see actors as tools in the hands of filmmakers, but Isabelle Huppert is a clear example that the dynamic can be a true exchange. Actors can be the true engine of creating not only emotions but also concepts of cinema.”
Isabelle Huppert began studying acting at the age of 14, and later attended the Conservatoire nationale supérieur d’art dramatique in Paris.
She began her career on stage and made her screen debut with Faustine et le bel été (Faustine and the Beautiful Summer, dir: Nina Companeez). Huppert’s first appearance in an international production was in the film Rosebud (dir: Otto Preminger). Two years later, her starring performance as the shy young woman Béatrice in Claude Goretta’s La Dentellière (The Lacemaker) won her the BAFTA as Most Promising Newcomer.
Huppert early on came to the attention of a host of top filmmakers, such as Jean-Luc Godard and Bertrand Tavernier. Her first turn for Godard was as the star of his Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Every Man for Himself). Other world-renowned directors soon seized on Huppert’s diverse acting talents, including Olivier Assayas, Catherine Breillat, Patrice Chéreau, Claire Denis, Andrzej Wajda, and Joachim Trier, as well as American filmmakers such as Curtis Hanson, Hal Hartley, Ira Sachs, and David O. Russell. Italian filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani gave her the lead in their film Le affinità elettive (Elective Affinities) and she was part of the ensemble in Marco Bellocchio’s Bella Addormentata (Dormant Beauty).
Acclaimed French director Claude Chabrol cast Isabelle Huppert in a total of seven films, with each character as mutable and complex as the next, beginning with the title role in Violette Nozière. That garnered her first Palme D’Or for Best Actress at the Cannes film festival. Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire played a pair of homicidal friends in the director’s La Cérémonie, a role that won her a César. Huppert’s final collaboration with Chabrol was her complex portrayal of a powerful judge in L’ivresse du pouvoir (Comedy of Power), which premiered in Competition at the Berlinale.
The actor’s film career has also been shaped by her work with Austrian director Michael Haneke, with whom she has made four movies. Her outstanding lead performance in his controversial 2001 drama La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher) brought her accolades as Best Actress in Cannes and at the European Film Awards, among others. Beginning with her appearance in Brillante Mendoza’s Captive, shown in Competition in Berlin, Huppert has increasingly worked with Asian directors. That same year, she was in Hong Sang-soo’s Da-reun na-ra-e-seo (In Another Country), playing three different women who all have the same name.
Huppert has also made successful films with other German-language directors and actors. She appeared alongside Hanna Schygulla in Storia di Piera (The Story of Piera) directed by Marco Ferreri. And she took on the lead as the nameless writer who increasingly loses touch with reality in the film adaptation of Ingeborg Bachmann’s Malina (dir: Werner Schroeter), winning the German Film Prize. She was top-billed in Swiss director Ursula Meier’s Home.
Isabelle Huppert has been nominated for the French film prize César more than any other actress in France and has twice won one. Her virtuoso acting style has also brought her two Palmes D’Or at Cannes. She has appeared in more than 20 films shown in competition there — yet another record. She won a Golden Globe as Best Actress for her work in the thriller Elle (dir: Paul Verhoeven). That role as a successful businesswoman who takes revenge on her rapist also resulted in her first Academy Award nomination.
In addition to her successful onscreen career, Isabelle Huppert also continues working on stage and has been awarded the Europe Theater Prize, among others. After premiering the French version of Orlando, she took to the stage under Robert Wilson’s direction once again as the glacial marchioness Merteuil in Heiner Müller’s Quartett. She was equally brilliant in Sarah Kane’s play 4.48 Psychosis staged by Claude Régy. Guest performance of that play in Berlin marked the first time that Huppert appeared on a German stage, entrancing audiences with her intense portrayal.
The French-German-Irish co-production À propos de Joan (About Joan) directed by Laurent Larivière, which stars Huppert alongside Lars Eidinger, will be released in Germany in 2022.
The Homage films:
La Dentellière (The Lacemaker), France / FRG / Switzerland, 1977, Claude Goretta Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Every Man for Himself), France / Switzerland / FRG / Austria, 1980, Jean-Luc Godard La Cérémonie, France / Germany, 1995, Claude Chabrol La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher), France / Austria / Germany, 2001, Michael Haneke 8 Femmes (8 Women), France / Italy, 2002, François Ozon L’Avenir (Things to Come), France / Germany, 2016, Mia Hansen-Løve Elle, France / Germany / Belgium, 2016, Paul Verhoeven
The Homage is mounted under the aegis of the Deutsche Kinemathek.
20 editions, 10,000 alumni, seven hubs from Beirut to Buenos Aires and a yearly tally of more than 100 former participants with films in the festival: the Berlinale’s talent development initiative has a lot to celebrate. For the 20th edition, taking place from February 12 to 17, 2022, *Berlinale Talents is optimistically looking forward to a physical event with digital components, all destined to bring together the 200 invited Talents across 13 disciplines.
Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, the director duo of the Berlinale, put it best: “Berlinale Talents is far more than a place where creative people can gather inspiration for their careers in film. Since 2003, the festival has been supporting the long-term development of new talent: open-minded, collaborative, involved and with a great amount of trust in the innovative power of the film community.”
“Labors of Cinema” in Focus
Though a film is presented to the public as a final, glittering creation, it is of course the product of many, and the labour and working terrain of various professions and crafts. It is the work itself that Berlinale Talents wishes to celebrate with this year’s anniversary theme “Labours of Cinema”. In Hollywood and elsewhere, the representatives of a multifaceted film community are currently campaigning for better working conditions and are striving to be heard in public. A better environment for every player in film work is becoming the new and confident “battle cry” of a younger cultural industry in which diversity, social sustainability and room for artistic freedom play important roles. Berlinale Talents is curating its programme in light of this “hands-on” spirit: placing the onus on the act of making, this year Berlinale Talents sees itself as a great factory where the live talks and workshops will provide both Talents and public audiences the pleasure of working together.
Key Visual 2022: Cinema(nts)
Without you and me, there is no film. Cooperation, division of labor, (wo)manpower and joy: the key visual spells out how essential the coming together of many is to the emergence of the one, final product. What from afar can seem like a swarming mass, is in fact a sophisticated system based on both hand and leg work, which Imad Gebrayel’s artwork picks up on with a wink.
*Berlinale Talents is an initiative of the Berlin International Film Festival
Screenwriter, director and producer M. Night Shyamalan will serve as president of the International Jury at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival.
The successful American immigrant filmmaker originally from South Asia has been captivating audiences worldwide with his genre films over the past three decades. His breakthrough, the 1999 psychological thriller The Sixth Sense starring Bruce Willis, was the second highest grossing film of that year and received six Academy Award nominations. Today, Shyamalan remains one of the most recognised names in filmmaking.
As an original storyteller, Shyamalan focuses on thrillers that play with genre conventions. His use of supernatural elements often contrasts or combines with philosophical reflections of our own existence.
“I’m pleased and honoured that M. Night Shyamalan has accepted our invitation to serve as president of the Jury. Throughout his career he’s shaped a universe in which fears and desires stand side by side, where young people are not only the protagonists but also the driving force for overcoming dread. Within the US movie business Shyamalan is a unique figure, a filmmaker that has remained faithful to his vision. This truthfulness to one’s ideal is also what we are looking for in our selection,” comments the Berlinale’s Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian.
“I have always felt like an independent filmmaker within the system of Hollywood,” says Shyamalan. “It is exactly those things in us that are different and unorthodox that define our voice. I have tried to maintain these things in myself and cheer others on to protect those aspects in their art and in themselves. Being asked to be a part of Berlinale is deeply meaningful to me. It represents the highest imprimatur for a filmmaker. Being able to support and celebrate the world’s very best talent in storytelling is a gift I happily accepted.”
Shyamalan studied filmmaking at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts; during his final year he shot his first feature film Praying with Anger, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. His impressive filmmaking includes 14 feature films as a cinema director.
After The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan released a string of blockbusters with Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002), and The Village (2004). But it was with The Visit (2015), which became the most successful horror film of 2015, that Shyamalan decided to start financing his own films, giving him agency over his artistic vision, and helping to preserve the integrity of his storytelling. Split followed in 2017, which was number one at the US box office for three weeks in a row, followed by Glass, which repeated the same feat by remaining at the top of the box office for three weeks in a row. His latest cinema film Old, which is based on the graphic novel “Sandcastle” was released internationally in cinemas in summer 2021. He is currently working on his next cinema film, Knock at the Cabin, which will be released in February 2023.
Shyamalan has also had an equally successful start in the TV sector in 2015 with the 10-episode event series Wayward Pines for FOX, based on the best-selling novels. Currently Shyamalan serves as showrunner for the award-winning series Servant for Apple TV+. He has also directed several episodes of the series.
Shyamalan also devotes his time to the philanthropic projects of his foundation “The M. Night Shyamalan Foundation” which he co-founded with his wife in 2001. The foundation supports the grassroots efforts of emerging leaders as they work to eliminate the barriers created by poverty and social injustice in their communities.
Seeing and witnessing the ever-changing, shape-shifting of film festival perspectives, the Berlin International Film Festival, known simply as the Berlinale, lays testament to not only the validity of film as a cultural force but also its ability to transform and expand consciousness. With too many films to lend as examples of this, for simplicity I’ll just propose The Other Side of Hope.
But, let’s get back to the festivals. The best festivals, in my opinion, are highly organic and are representational of their respective communities. Having had an opportunity to attend the 67th Berlinale, I found my own awareness shift from a film-oriented focus to a focus on my German film-going cohorts, primarily German journalists. Having been nurtured via Southern California festivals (AFIFEST in Hollywood and Santa Barbara International Film Festival), I arrived well-before screening time and found myself engaging with my fellow attendees. So the article below goes beyond a resonance – it’s an awakening. Be sure to read it through to the end. You’ll be glad you did!
Adina Pintilie (Touch Me Not), Tom Tykwer, Dieter Kosslick Berlinale 2018
The magic of the Berlinale derives from the audience itself. For everyone present, it is as simple as it is complicated: a journey into one’s own emotions, a short trip out of the bustling city into the world of possibilities to live one’s life in a different way.
—- Robert Ide, Der Tagesspiegel, February 26 2018
In one sense, the 2018 Berlinale began early: on November 24, 2017. With the somewhat sensationalist title “Filmmakers Want to Revolutionise the Berlinale”, Spiegel Online published an appeal from 79 film directors that the procedure chosen to select the new Festival Director should be transparent. This was a legitimate request. Dieter Kosslick’s contract ended in 2019 and the processes of appointing leading positions in Berlin’s cultural institutions had in recent years sometimes lead to unfortunate choices and even met with massive opposition – the memory of the turmoil following the installation of Chris Dercon as artistic director of the Volksbühne was still fresh.
But what then turned the appeal into a farce was the article in which the few words from the filmmakers were embedded. Hannah Pilarczyk wrote: “Instead of sharpening the profile of the festival in terms of content, Kosslick has sought to counter the loss of significance with a constant expansion of sections and special presentations. This has led to a mess of programmes which in themselves are as insubstantial as the competition and mean that attention and discussion is scattered rather than concentrated” (Spiegel Online, November 24, 2017). Instead of focusing on the deficiencies and structures of cultural policy, the debate was turned into a final reckoning of the Festival Director. This was a totally unintended turn of events, as one of the joint signatories, Christian Petzold, later made clear: “Our appeal became personalised and was turned into a judgement of Dieter Kosslick, even though he had nothing at all to do with it” (in an interview with Der Tagesspiegel, February 16, 2018). An incensed Dominik Graf similarly spoke out: “If I had known that our letter would be dragged into the journalistic swamp of a judgement on Kosslick, I would never have signed it” (in Die Zeit, November 29, 2017).
The appeal was instrumentalised to channel often personal and long-held sensitivities into a kind of vendetta. In the Spiegel article, Pilarczyk basically did nothing more than bring into play the unease at an increasing “gigantism of the festival” (Yearbook 1988) that has been simmering amongst Berlinale critics for 30 years to insinuate that the signatories wanted to “deliver a damning indictment of the Kosslick era”. The man himself could only react laconically to the persistent hostility: “Well, it’s quite baffling, really […]. It was initially […] aimed at the process but then it attacked me […]. I have long been hoping for specific proposals about what we should do. But apart from the suggestion that we should make the Berlinale smaller, nothing has been forthcoming so far” (in an interview with Deutschlandfunk Kultur, February 15, 2018).
The festival and the city – Berlin, February 16, 2018
The Diversity of the Film/World
To make the Berlinale smaller, the call for a stronger curatorial hand – demands that have become as intrinsic to the festival as the cold weather. In light of the journalistic mudslinging in the run-up to the 2018 Berlinale, the impression might have arisen that Dieter Kosslick would be handing over a desolate and meaningless event to his successor in 2019. That this was not the case was proven by the festival itself, its programme and the journalistic debate arising in its wake. It became clear that the Berlinale is alive and kicking: its uniqueness clearly stood out in 2018.
Rather than exposing an untenable situation requiring urgent revolution, critics like Hannah Pilarczyk simply held an opinion which differed from others. And it was an opinion, as things turned out, that was not shared by the majority. “The tangled undergrowth, the profusion – that is the urban jungle, that is Berlin. It is what differentiates the Berlinale from the hysterical clarity of the small towns of Cannes and Venice […]. The critics […] fail to grasp the Berlinale because they have already failed to grasp Berlin. One should not accommodate them by pruning this film festival into something that complies with an authoritarian small-town character and its fantasies of control,” wrote Jens Jessen in Zeit Online on February 14, 2018. You only needed to take an early morning stroll across Potsdamer Platz and observe the slowly awakening bustle of journalists, industry visitors, audiences, selfie hunters and tourists to comprehend the special quality and atmosphere of the festival.
It was never a goal of the festival to court hermetically sealed specialist discourses. At its centre stood diversity and an enthusiastic audience who packed the cinemas once again in 2018. “Does it not demonstrate cinephile self-aggrandisement to believe that the audience requires a strong guiding hand? Instead, one should have the confidence that, in this complex world, people are able to navigate their way through a substantial programme brochure and allow it to inspire them,” argued Wenke Husmann in Zeit Online (February 15, 2018).
A bath in the crowd: Joaquin Phoenix at the premiere of Don’t Worrry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
Her plea for diversity found prominent support: “I usually hate film festivals. Last night, Gus [Van Sant] was doing the Berlin Talents and I went along to watch and saw all these young filmmakers that are curious about the process and hearing Gus speak, I had a real appreciation for a film festival,” said Joaquin Phoenix, in Berlin for the premiere of Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worrry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, about his first positive festival experience (deadline, February 21, 2018).
As in previous years, the days of the festival celebrated the opportunity provided by almost 400 films to travel round the world, experience the most diverse milieus, ways of life, opinions and attitudes, and to put one’s own preconceptions and prejudices to the test. “The eyes of many Berlinale viewers are shining when the credits roll and they ponder the films in the Panorama, Forum or Generation sections on which they have fruitfully lavished their time in recalibrating their own world view,” wrote Robert Ide (Der Tagespiegel, February 26, 2018). The 2018 Competition was representative of the immense diversity of the entire festival. Film critic Katja Nicodemus admitted: “I have never experienced anything like it, so many different aesthetics and crazy film ideas” (NDR Online, February 22, 2018).
For the very first time in its history, the Berlinale opened with an animated film: Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs was not only a curatorial stroke of luck, bringing the necessary star power to the festival’s first Red Carpet, but also a “parable of a world filled with fascist ideas of purity and exclusion” (Verena Lueken, FAZ, February 16, 2018) and hence a paradigm for the festival’s concept of diversity.
At the premiere of Bixa Travesty (Tranny Fag): director Kiko Goifman, Panorama section head Paz Lázaro, director Claudia Priscilla and protagonist Linn da Quebrada
#MeToo and Diversity
In mid-October 2017, the MeToo hashtag dominated social networks. It was established in the wake of the heated debates on gender relations in the film industry triggered by the scandal surrounding producer Harvey Weinstein. Several female actors have accused Weinstein of sexual assault, up to and including rape. The issue had wide repercussions, including in Germany, and became a dominant topic at the 2018 Berlinale where Dieter Kosslick put #MeToo in a wider context and focused on power relations in general. Such discussions are “also a bit in the DNA of the Berlinale” (in an interview with Deutschlandfunk Kultur, February 15, 2018) because this issue, too, is ultimately about diversity. The festival’s commitment was accordingly recognised by the press: “Where else can cinema-goers find such a wide range of queer, international and political movies without working as an industry insider? Certainly not Cannes nor Venice, both of which remain privy only to those with the correct pass […]. Much like Berlin itself, the Berlinale prizes inclusivity above all else, and in this tumultuous era, it’s hard to imagine anything more important than that” (David Opie, EXBERLINER, 09 February 2018).
The last days of eastern Aleppo’s siege: : Milad Amin’s Ard al mahshar (Land of Doom) from Forum Expanded
The Obstructed View
With #MeToo, the film world turned its attention to its own structures, and in view of the current global political situation, the 2018 festival also became a question of identity. The image of a world out of joint already present in previous years had only sharpened and the Berlinale, which began in 1951 as a “showcase of the free world”, had to ask itself whether this free world even still existed. The so-called “leader of the free world”, a buffoonish US billionaire now unexpectedly a year into office, had still not forsaken his fantasy of a concrete wall between the USA and Mexico, had introduced protective tariffs, fired his foreign minister by Twitter and was himself accused of sexual assault. A continuing manifestation of this chaos was bomb-flattened Syria. The (proxy) wars between Russia and the USA, the interests of Turkey, the Kurds, Bashar al-Assad, the dystopian ideals of Islamic State, etcetera, were being fought on the backs of a fleeing or dying civilian population. Most of the world closed its eyes to the mass murder taking place.
It was therefore all the more important that a trend from previous years continued in the 2018 programme: films again challenged the act of forgetting and insisted on holding the past to account, and this took place across all sections. As Christoph Terhechte, head of Forum, summarised in an interview: “Addressing the past is what preoccupies filmmakers most at the moment. Especially because the view of the future is so obstructed worldwide. It is very hard to imagine what our civilisation will look like in 20 or 50 years time. To find answers to this question requires taking recourse to the past because it contains the reasons for the current situation. That is the prerequisite for future utopias.”
Two films, both using material originally shot in the 1980s: Unas preguntas (One or Two Questions) by Kristina Konrad and Waldheims Walzer (The Waldheim Waltz) by Ruth Beckermann
Nationalism Then as Now
It was striking how frequently the focus was trained on the devastation caused by dictatorial regimes. In his Competition entry Ang Panahon ng Halimaw (Season of the Devil), Lav Diaz returned to the darkest hours of the Marcos regime in the Philippines. Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar’s The Silence of Others in Panorama depicted the fight against the state-sanctioned forgetting of the Franco regime in Spain. An amnesty law issued after the military dictatorship in Uruguay was at the centre of Unas Preguntas (One or Two Questions) by Kristina Konrad in Forum. Konrad drew on material she shot in the 1980s to show how active democracy worked then and should work today. In a similar way, Ruth Beckermann edited together footage she also shot in the 1980s. In Waldheims Walzer (The Waldheim Waltz) she followed the – successful – 1986 election campaign of former UN Ambassador Kurt Waldheim as he ran for the office of Austrian Federal President. At that time, Waldheim had consigned his Nazi past to oblivion and thus became a symbol for an entire nation which perceived itself as a victim of the Nazi regime rather than its accomplice. Waldheims Walzer insisted, and persisted, in scrutinising and refusing to forget – and for this the film was rewarded with the Glashütte Original – Documentary Award. Beckermann’s film also had a burning topicality as the shift to the right and the resurgence of nation states was in evidence everywhere in our supposedly globalised world.
That certain milieus or individuals have long since bid farewell to the idea of democracy was reflected in multifaceted ways in the 2018 programme. In Až přijde válka (When the War Comes) in Panorama, Jan Gebert documented the preparations made by a paramilitary group in Slovakia for the self-heralded clash of civilisations. The most shocking aspect of this was the commonplace way in which paramilitary posturing was integrated into people’s everyday lives. The catastrophe to which such ways of thinking can lead was made tangible by Erik Poppe in the Competition. With Utøya 22. juli (U – July 22) he delivered the audience back to the year 2011 and the warzone of a war without borders, to the mass murder committed by the self-proclaimed defender of the Western world Anders Breivik who, unwilling to wait any longer for the clash of civilisations to begin, transformed the Social Democrat Party’s youth camp into the scene of a massacre.
War games: Až přijde válka (When the War Comes) by Jan Gebert
Revolution of the Senses
Beyond its topic, Utøya 22. juli also impressively tackled the prerequisite of any form of politics: perception. With a running time of 90 minutes, the film’s length corresponded to that of the 2011 massacre itself. Poppe eschewed cuts and hence the audience experienced the flight and dying of the Norwegian teenagers in an, at times, agonising tour-de-force of a single take. Allowing the events to play out in real time made the suffering and fear tangible in a much stronger way than any conventional documentary could hope to achieve. Just how strongly form is connected to political implications was also demonstrated by Nesrine Khodr’s installation Extended Sea in the Forum Expanded exhibition. Here, once again, a single, and in this case, fixed shot: for 705 minutes almost nothing happens. Anyone who could spare over eleven hours – and particularly in the context of a film festival where the limited nature of time and the imperative to accumulate the greatest possible number of viewed films dictate the daily schedule – to devote their full attention to a single work has obviously left behind the premises of turbo-capitalism and can also perceive the social world in an entirely new way.
Extended Sea found its counterpart in Panorama where Profile offered a wonderful reflection on the state of perception in the digital age. Timur Bekmambetov told the story of a British journalist who allows herself to be recruited by IS via Skype in order to write an article about it. For him, a mere laptop screen was sufficient cinematic space, where the ways in which perception becomes hysterical and incredibly accelerated can be experienced, as can the abstruse manner in which the private and professional, life and death, are pieced together in hard cuts. “From the point of view of a normal resident of audiovisual culture, film festivals are only as good as they are representatives, engines and reflections of general image culture” wrote Georg Seeßlen in Freitag (07/2018 edition) – and the 2018 programme had no reason to shy away from this demand.
A Farewell and Three Welcomes
In the summer of 2017, Panorama saw a significant change in personnel. After 25 years, Wieland Speck passed the leadership baton to Paz Lázaro who curated the programme for the 68th Berlinale together with Michael Stütz and Andreas Struck. All three had worked for Panorama for a long time already and they continued to focus on key topics such as LGBT cinema. At the same time, their very own distinctive styles became clearly visible in a focused and compact programme.
And it was also an end of an era at the European Film Market: after 30 years the grande dame of the film world, Beki Probst, was bid farewell with a Berlinale Camera. As director and then president, she had made the market an incomparable success story. “I began with three colleagues and a handful of films,” she recalled in the Tagesanzeiger (February 15, 2018). In 2018, with 10,000 participants from 112 countries and 661 films screened, the EFM set new records.
At the Award Ceremony: The team of Touch Me Not with the Golden Bear
“Sexperiments”
The 2018 festival reserved its biggest surprise for the Award Ceremony. Instead of awarding one of the tipped favourites in the Competition, Jury President Tom Tykwer and his fellow jurors honoured a “small”, semi-documentary film experience from Romania which hardly anyone had on their radar: Touch Me Not by Adina Pintilie took home both the GWFF Best First Feature Award and the Golden Bear. Its candid treatment of naked bodies, sexuality and intimacy had already caused a stir at its premiere two days earlier. Some critics left the screening in a huff, lurid headlines blazed for the next few days: “Gold for the Nude Shocker” (Berliner Morgenpost), “Sexperimental Film ‘Touch Me Not’ Unsettles Berlinale Audiences” (Rolling Stone), “Audience Members Walk Out Due to Excessive Sex Scenes” (Die Welt).
In a time of an omnipresent digital porn economy, Pintilie had struck a nerve. The film investigates the fundamentals of what is termed “intimacy”, what defines it and how it is experienced. In view of the heterogeneous bodies and personalities it portrays – Pintilie’s protagonists are all psychologically or physically peculiar in their own way – rather than the nudity in the film, it is the normativity of the “beautiful” bodies which generally prevail on our cinema screens which seems monstrous. Pintilie’s film discovers beauty in what is all too often excluded and marginalised and in the #MeToo era it was another powerfully urgent plea for true diversity. Reactions to the Golden Bear winner were heated and divergent. Peter Bradshaw from the Guardian took the jury’s decision as an opportunity to make a personal reckoning of the festival as a whole: “Victory for Adina Pintilie’s humourless and clumsy documentary essay underscores Berlin’s status as a festival that promotes the dull and valueless” (February 25, 2018). Tobias Kniebe, in contrast, wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung: “And a film that succeeds in completely rewiring a few synapses in the brains of its viewers – does that not deserve all the Bears going?” (February 25, 2018).
Alonso Ruizpalacios and Manuel Alcalá celebrating the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay
The passion of the debate unleashed by Touch Me Not also demonstrated the exceptional quality in the 2018 Competition in which many films deserved a prize. Above all, the German critics were disappointed that the four strong German entries – Christian Petzold’s Transit, Emily Atef’s 3 Tage in Quiberon (3 Days in Quiberon), Philip Gröning’s Mein Bruder heißt Robert und ist ein Idiot (My Brother’s Name is Robert and He is an Idiot) and Thomas Stuber’s In den Gängen (In the Aisles) – went home empty-handed. Gunnar Decker succinctly summed up the general mood in Neues Deutschland on February 26, 2018: “This year’s competition [was] one of the strongest in recent years. Above all, it saw a return of strong German films which surprised with very different distinctive styles.”
The other awards revealed how multifaceted and diverse the 2018 Competition was: Małgorzata Szumowska won the Grand Jury Prize with her satire on contemporary Poland, Twarz (Mug); Wes Anderson secured consideration for his animated film Isle of Dogs with the award for Best Director. The quiet, intimate Paraguayan drama Las herederas (The Heiresses) by Marcelo Martinessi won the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize and the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Ana Brun.
Anthony Bajon with the Silver Bear for Best Actor
For his role as the drug-addicted young drifter in Cédric Kahn’s La prière (The Prayer), young French performer Anthony Bajon won the Silver Bear for Best Actor. The prize for Best Screenplay went to Mexico for Manuel Alcalá and Alonso Ruizpalacios’ (who also directed the film Museo (Museum)) retelling of the audacious 1985 break-in at the Mexican National Museum. The Russian Elena Okopnaya was honoured for her Outstanding Artistic Contribution (Costume and Production Design) in Alexey German Jr.’s portrait of the artist Dovlatov.
And so the 68th Berlinale climaxed in an Award Ceremony which once again reflected the great diversity of the festival. As Hanns-Georg Rodek summed up: “The Berlin Film Festival is returning to its roots. It’s once again a political festival of free thinking that ventures to take more risks than Venice or Cannes. ‘Touch Me Not’ is a signal to the other festivals that this Berlinale is ready to change. And a signal to all filmmakers that they are looking to take risks” (Die Welt, February 25, 2018). Amongst the critics, anticipation for next year and the 69th Berlinale won out in the end. Tim Caspar Böhme, for example, wrote: “This year could […] turn out to be the prelude for an increased understanding of the Berlinale as an experimental laboratory for films. Which would be no bad thing” (Die Tageszeitung, February 25, 2018). The alleged sense of deep crisis proclaimed by Der Spiegel in late November had, by the end of February, ultimately been transformed into a hopeful spirit of optimism.
@Berlinale (Photo credit: Larry Gleeson/HollywoodGlee)
When the 68th Berlin International Film Festival takes place from February 15 – 25, 2018, Berlin will once again belong to the bears.
Festival Director Dieter Kosslick
“It’s that time of year again: The bears are out and about! On this year’s posters they’ll be popping up at well-known Berlin landmarks to get us in the mood for terrific festival days,” comments Festival Director Dieter Kosslick.
The poster series, featuring six different scenes, was again designed by the Swiss agency Velvet. The posters will go up city-wide and be available for purchase at the Berlinale Online Shop starting on January 22.
Here comes the 2018 Berlinale! After last year’s splendid close, this year’s 68th Berlin International Film Festival is taking shape and you don’t want to miss it.
The first ten films have been selected for the Competition and the Berlinale Special.
Alongside the previously announced opening film, Isle of Dogs by Wes Anderson, seven productions and co-productions from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Serbia, the Russian Federation, and the USA have been invited to take part in the Competition.
So far two productions have been invited to participate in the Berlinale Special. As part of the Official Program, it screens recent works by contemporary filmmakers, as well as documentaries and works with extraordinary formats.
Competition
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
USA
By Gus Van Sant (Milk, Promised Land)
With Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara, Jack Black, Udo Kier
International premiere
Dovlatov
Russian Federation / Poland / Serbia
By Alexey German Jr. (Paper Soldier, Under Electric Clouds)
With Milan Maric, Danila Kozlovsky, Helena Sujecka, Artur Beschastny, Elena Lyadova
World premiere
Eva
France
By Benoit Jacquot (Three Hearts, Diary of a Chambermaid)
With Isabelle Huppert, Gaspard Ulliel, Julia Roy, Richard Berry
World premiere
Figlia mia (Daughter of Mine)
Italy / Germany / Switzerland
By Laura Bispuri (Sworn Virgin)
With Valeria Golino, Alba Rohrwacher, Sara Casu, Udo Kier
World premiere
In den Gängen (In the Aisles)
Germany
By Thomas Stuber (Teenage Angst, A Heavy Heart)
With Franz Rogowski, Sandra Hüller, Peter Kurth
World premiere
Mein Bruder heißt Robert und ist ein Idiot
Germany
By Philip Gröning (Into Great Silence, The Police Officer’s Wife)
With Josef Mattes, Julia Zange, Urs Jucker, Stefan Konarske, Zita Aretz, Karolina Porcari, Vitus Zeplichal
World premiere
Twarz (Mug)
Poland
By Małgorzata Szumowska (In the Name of, Body)
With Mateusz Kościukiewicz, Agnieszka Podsiadlik, Małgorzata Gorol, Roman Gancarczyk, Dariusz Chojnacki, Robert Talarczyk, Anna Tomaszewska, Martyna Krzysztofik
World premiere
Berlinale Special Gala
The Bookshop
Spain / United Kingdom / Germany
By Isabel Coixet (Things I Never Told You, My Life Without Me, The Secret Life of Words)
With Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson
German premiere
Das schweigende Klassenzimmer (The Silent Revolution)
Germany
By Lars Kraume (The People vs. Fritz Bauer)
With Leonard Scheicher, Tom Gramenz, Lena Klenke, Jonas Dassler, Florian Lukas, Jördis Triebel, Michael Gwisdek, Ronald Zehrfeld, Burghart Klaußner
30 years ago, the European Film Market (EFM) celebrated its premiere as an international trade market for films at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival. Today, the EFM is one of the most important film markets worldwide. It has become considerably more than just an industry get-together and distribution point: Starting with the digital transformation, the EFM began strategically opening up to new market participants, business fields, products and distribution paths. In recent years the EFM has increasingly positioned itself as a place for innovation and change in the film trade – without losing sight of its core business as a marketplace offering high-quality content. Its numerous platforms provide the film industry with trendsetting impulses that effectively strengthen its position as one of the most important international transfer points for moving pictures. The exhibition spaces for the upcoming EFM of the 68th Berlin International Film Festival at Martin-Gropius-Bau and the Marriott Hotel are already fully booked. More than 9,000 exhibitors, license traders, producers, buyers and investors are expected to attend the event over the course of nine market days from February 15 – 23, 2018.
EFM director Matthijs Wouter Knol
“The industry is still in the midst of change. The digital transformation is not yet complete and new possibilities for film that are worth a closer look are constantly opening up. With its platforms and different formats, the EFM provides participants with the tools to meet the contemporary challenges of the business.”
Beki Probst, President and founder of EFM
President and founder of the EFM Beki Probst comments on the anniversary: “When the EFM began in 1988, it was clear that the Berlinale wanted to create a meeting point for the industry and that our planned format of a European Film Market would work. We never imagined that the EFM would become one of the most important film markets worldwide, reflecting the movements and pioneering spirit of the film industry in an incomparably diverse way. In all modesty: The EFM is a success story and has consistently been one for 30 years.”
Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick
Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick congratulates Beki Probst on 30 years of successful work: “Without Beki Probst and her contacts worldwide, her charm and cosmopolitan gift for combining business and culture, the EFM would never have become such a successful platform and the strong backbone of the festival.”
In its anniversary year, Canada will be the “Country in Focus” at the EFM. Canada’s successful film industry will present itself comprehensively and highlight special aspects of Canadian filmmaking.
In 2018, the Berlin International Film Festival will be supported by the French cosmetics brand L’Oréal Paris for the 20th year in succession.
Listen to Festival Director Dieter Kosslick:
“No make-up, no movies – true to this motto, our partnership with L’Oréal Paris is especially close to our hearts. We are grateful and proud to be able to celebrate this 20th anniversary with our principal partner L’Oréal Paris at the 68th Berlinale. To this day, its passionate engagement and valuable support has given the festival, its guests, and the public many magnificent moments,” says Festival Director Dieter Kosslick.
With its professional make-up team, the Berlinale’s official cosmetics specialist has assisted the stars in finding the perfect look for the Red Carpet since 1999.
Glimmering Gong Li walks the Berlinale Red Carpet outside the Berlinale Palast Pottsdam Theater. Make up by L’Oreal.
And the fact that the world of film is closely related to the world of beauty can be seen in the glamorous Red Carpet appearances of film icons and brand ambassadors such as Julianne Moore, Jane Fonda, Andie MacDowell, Gong Li and Iris Berben.
L’Oréal Paris also offers a very special service for festival-goers. Beauty experts will advise visitors and give them the latest “Berlinale look”, free of charge, at the L’Oréal Paris Make-up-Studio at Potsdamer Platz.
(Source: Press release provided by Berlin Press Office)
As part of the Berlinale Classics program, the 68th Berlin International Film Festival will be presenting Ewald André Dupont’s silent Das alte Gesetz (The Ancient Law, Germany, 1923) as a special screening with live music. The film, digitally restored under the auspices of the Deutsche Kinemathek, and accompanied by new music by French composer Philippe Schoeller, will have its world premiere on February 16, 2018 in the Friedrichstadt-Palast.
Das alte Gesetz (The Ancient Law) is an important piece of German-Jewish cinematic history; it contrasts the closed world of an Eastern European shtetl with the liberal mores of 1860s Vienna, and tackles the issue of the assimilation of Jews in 19th century Europe.
The Deutsche Kinemathek undertook the first efforts at reconstructing the film in 1984, trying to get as close to the original version as possible, as far as the sources available at the time allowed. When the original censor’s certificate was later uncovered, containing the text of the title cards, it would eventually provide the impetus for renewed research efforts world-wide and finally for a new, digital restoration.
“With its authentic set design and an excellent ensemble of actors, all captured magnificently by cinematographer Theodor Sparkuhl, The Ancient Law is an outstanding example of the creativity of Jewish filmmakers in 1920s Germany”, says Rainer Rother, head of the Retrospective section and artistic director of the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen.
The new music by Philippe Schoeller was commissioned by the broadcasters ZDF/ARTE. Schoeller gets to the heart of the film with meticulously composed ensemble music that employs all the techniques of a modern soundtrack. It consciously establishes some historical distance to the film itself and uses a tapestry of translucid sounds to emphasise the visual excellence of the silent classic. The composition will be performed by the Orchester Jakobsplatz München, with Daniel Grossmann at the podium. The orchestra, founded in 2005, focuses on the work of Jewish composers, as well as 20th and 21st century music, making an important contribution to contemporary German-Jewish culture. Its most recent guest appearance at the Berlinale was in 2013.
The new restoration drew upon nitrate prints in five different languages found in archives in Europe and the US. The text of the original German title cards was long thought lost. It was not until the censor’s certificate listing the intertitles was unearthed that the restoration team from the Deutsche Kinemathek could accurately reconstruct them, as well as correcting and finalising the editing. The colour concept was based primarily on two found prints nearly identical in their colourisation. So this is the first time that a version corresponding to the 1920s German theatrical release will be shown, both in its original length, and with the colourisation digitally restored.
The Berlinale screening marks the start of the film’s tour to several cities, mainly in Eastern Europe, that were once hubs of Jewish life, including Vilnius, Budapest, Warsaw, and Vienna. It will also be shown at the Silent Film Festival in San Francisco.
The restored version will debut on television on February 19, 2018 on the ARTE channel. Simultaneously, absolut MEDIEN will release a DVD as part of its ARTE EDITION series, containing a wealth of bonus material on the restoration process.
The Deutsche Kinemathek’s digital restoration of Das alte Gesetz (The Ancient Law) was made possible through the personal commitment of professor Cynthia Walk (University of California, San Diego), and generous support from the Sunrise Foundation for Education and the Arts.
The world premiere of the digitally restored version in Berlin is a cooperative venture between the Berlin International Film Festival, the Deutsche Kinemathek, and public broadcaster ZDF in cooperation with ARTE.
The 68th Berlin International Film Festival will open at the Berlinale Palast on February 15, 2018 with the world premiere of Wes Anderson’s animated film Isle of Dogs.
Anderson has previously presented three films in the Berlinale Competition: The Royal Tenenbaums (2002), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2005), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) whichopened the 64th Berlin International Film Festival and won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize.
Berlinale Festival Director, Dieter Kosslick
“I’m most delighted that Wes Anderson will kick off the Berlinale Competition again.Isle of Dogs will be the first animated film to open the Festival – a film that will capture audiences’ hearts with its Wes Anderson charm,” says Festival Director Dieter Kosslick.
Isle of Dogs tells the story of Atari Kobayashi, 12-year-old ward to corrupt Mayor Kobayashi. When, by Executive Decree, all the canine pets of Megasaki City are exiled to a vast garbage-dump, Atari sets off alone in a miniature Junior-Turbo Prop and flies to Trash Island in search of his bodyguard-dog, Spots. There, with the assistance of a pack of newly-found mongrel friends, he begins an epic journey that will decide the fate and future of the entire Prefecture.
The voice cast includes Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, Kunichi Nomura, Tilda Swinton, Ken Watanabe, Akira Ito, Greta Gerwig, Akira Takayama, Frances McDormand, F. Murray Abraham, Courtney B. Vance, Yojiro Noda, Fisher Stevens, Mari Natsuki, Nijiro Murakami, Yoko Ono, Harvey Keitel and Frank Wood.
Following their collaboration on The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson return as producers on Isle of Dogs, which was produced by Indian Paintbrush and filmed at 3 Mills Studios in London. Christoph Fisser, Henning Molfenter and Charlie Woebcken of Studio Babelsberg serve as executive producers. Fox Searchlight Pictures will distribute the film worldwide in partnership with Indian Paintbrush.
Isle of Dogs will release in US cinemas on March 23, 2018. Internationally, the film will open in cinemas from April 2018.
(Source: Press release provided by Berlin Press Office)
30 years ago, the European Film Market (EFM) celebrated its premiere as an international trade market for films at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival. Today, the EFM is one of the most important film markets worldwide. It has become considerably more than just an industry get-together and distribution point: Starting with the digital transformation, the EFM began strategically opening up to new market participants, business fields, products and distribution paths. In recent years the EFM has increasingly positioned itself as a place for innovation and change in the film trade – without losing sight of its core business as a marketplace offering high-quality content. Its numerous platforms provide the film industry with trendsetting impulses that effectively strengthen its position as one of the most important international transfer points for moving pictures. The exhibition spaces for the upcoming EFM of the 68th Berlin International Film Festival at Martin-Gropius-Bau and the Marriott Hotel are already fully booked. More than 9,000 exhibitors, license traders, producers, buyers and investors are expected to attend the event over the course of nine market days from February 15 – 23, 2018.
“No make-up, no movies – true to this motto, our partnership with L’Oréal Paris is especially close to our hearts. We are grateful and proud to be able to celebrate this 20th anniversary with our principal partner L’Oréal Paris at the 68th Berlinale. To this day, its passionate engagement and valuable support has given the festival, its guests, and the public many magnificent moments,” says Festival Director Dieter Kosslick.
