The world is on fire and the Berlinale is showing melodramas. Carlo Chatrian proves once again that he understands political cinema differently than Dieter Kosslick.
Claudia Reinhard
Vicky Krieps as Ingeborg Bachmann. Director Margarethe von Trotta is back in the competition after 40 years with “Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert”.Wolfgang Ennenbach
Rarely in the history of the film festival has the Berlinale been loaded with so many expectations in advance as this year. It should depict international crises and conflicts, ideally contributing to their defusing. It should reflect current debates in the program and your own work processes, not promote any corona infections and, in order to save the cinema, get the audience excited about the screen again.
The festival management, consisting of the managing director Mariette Rissenbeek and the artistic director Carlo Chatrian, bravely faced up to the press conference on Monday morning in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and reacted with a lot of patience and benevolence to the mostly reproachful questions from the international press immediately after the performance of the competition films: “What is your opinion on the movement in Iran, what are you doing for Jafar Panahi?” – “Why are there no Ukrainian, Arabic or African films in the competition?” – “Why do the same artists always come to the Berlinale?”
Margarethe von Trotta back in competition after 40 years
At least the last accusation comes in the wrong year. In fact, only a few big names are represented in the 73rd Berlinale competition, including big Berlinale names. But there are a few, mainly from Germany. Christian Petzold, for example, he is allowed to show “Red Sky”, the second part of a planned trilogy, following “Undine”, which also ran in the competition in 2020. The biggest murmur in the audience, however, was the announcement that Margarethe von Trotta would be competing for the Golden Bear in Berlin again after 40 years. After “Heller Wahn” with Angela Winkler and Hanna Schygulla in 1983, she is now showing “Ingeborg Bachmann – Reise in die Wüste” with Vicky Krieps in the role of the writer.
Emily Atef is also back in the competition after her Romy Schneider story “3 Days in Quiberon” from 2018. “Someday we will tell each other everything” is her adaptation of Daniela Krien’s novel of the same name about the love story between a teenager and a farmer twice her age in the Thuringian province. Angela Schanelec, who was invited to the Berlinale for the first time in 2019 with her German-Serbian drama “I was at home, but…” and thus won the prize for best director, is showing her Oedipus story “Music “, in which a Greek orphan boy in prison develops a special relationship with his guard and slowly loses his sight.
Representing the festival for the first time with a feature film is Christoph Hochhäusler, who signed a petition to reform the Berlinale in 2017 and publicly represented his position on the somewhat “weary” festival. In his crime thriller “Until the end of the night”, an undercover investigator lets himself be smuggled into the drug milieu by a trans woman.
Probably the best known international name in the competition is Philippe Garrel – the French director tells the story of a family of three generations of puppeteers with his son Louis in the leading role in “Le grand chariot”. A total of 18 films from 19 countries are competing for the Golden Bear this year. Six of them were directed by a woman, one fewer than last year.
Iranian and Russian state-affiliated media are not welcome
As director, Dieter Kosslick always insisted on the reputation of the Berlinale as a political festival. He tried to fulfill this self-imposed claim with a large number of films with explicitly political themes. Artistic director Carlo Chatrian, on the other hand, puts more emphasis on aesthetics. “For me, the most political films are not those with a specific theme, but those that seek to change the viewer’s perspective. The more subtle they seem, the better,” he said in an interview with this newspaper shortly before his first Berlinale 2020. Since then, this attitude has been particularly vivid every year in the “Encounters” section he invented, but it can also be felt in the competition.
The competition
20,000 species of bees (20,000 Species of Bees) von Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
Bai Ta Zhi Guang (The Shadowless Tower) by Zhang Lu
Until the end of the night (Till the End of the Night) by Christoph Hochhäusler
BlackBerry by Matt Johnson
Disco Boy by Giacomo Abbruzzese
The big cart (The Plow) by Philippe Garrel
Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the desert (Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert) by Margarethe von Trotta
Someday we will tell each other everything (Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything) von Emily Atef
Limbo by Ivan Sen
barely live (Bad Living) von João Canijo
Manodrome by John Trengove
Music by Angela Schanelec
Past Lives by Celine Song
red sky (Afire) by Christian Petzold
On the Adamant (On the Adamant) by Nicolas Philibert
The Survival of Kindness (The Survival of Kindness) by Rolf de Heer
Suzume von Makoto Shinkai Totem von Lila Avilés
Totem von Lila Aviles
“We felt like reality was back this year,” Chatrian said onstage before announcing the Encounters and competition entries. “Movies are good for capturing this reality. But cinema is more. We need poetry.”
Just as there have not been too many contributions to the corona pandemic born out of necessity in the past two years, the Berlinale is showing little in its most prominent places this year with direct reference to the war in Ukraine or the protests in Iran. At the press conference, a journalist from Ukraine wanted to know how it came about that a common thread in the competition was the genre of melodrama. Chatrian replied that it was not a conscious decision, “We choose films because they trigger something in us. You only find the red threads after the selection.” Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman present their film “Superpower” about Volodymyr Zelenskyj in the “Berlinale Special” section.
It is obvious that the production of high-quality films is currently almost impossible in Iran and Ukraine – despite all the technical innovations of recent years, the feature film medium is still only partially suitable for direct artistic examination of current political events. There will still be podiums for exchange and solidarity events, the management duo promised, and the finished plans for this should be published on February 7th together with the entire festival program. This year’s bear-shaped lapel pin is yellow and blue. The Berlinale also wants to set an example with its accreditation policy: media close to the state and participants from Iran and Russia are not welcome at the festival or at the European Film Market.
Rissenbeek and Chatrian kept quiet about Dieter Kosslick’s favorite question “Who’s coming?” Aside from the fact that Steven Spielberg will accept his honorary bear in person, little is known about stars walking the red carpet made from recycled plastic. That could change on February 1, when it will be officially announced who will support actress Kristen Stewart in the jury work.