MAGAZINE - Berlinale Talent Campus - Top-IX

HOME AFFAIRSSTORIES FROM HOME“HOME AFFAIRS – PRIVACY, FILMS AND POLITICS“ – THE CENTRAL THEME OF THIS YEAR’S BERLINALE TALENT CAMPUS WILL BE DISCUSSED INSEVERAL PANELS AND WORKSHOPS THAT EXPLORE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE LOCAL AND THE GLOBAL, THE PRIVATE AND THE PUBLICASPECTS OF MAKING FILMS.In recent years, the power of cinema as a platform for politicaldebate has been rediscovered. In effect, politics havereentered cinemas on the red carpet. But what makes today’sfilms political and what makes individuals love or hate a film?The answer lies in the power of identification – a deeply privaterelation and an empathy that grows for a character, twolovers, a family or a set of equal-minded people – and it istheir side you take, right or wrong.Part of the “Home Affairs” Film Programme: NEONORANGENE KUH by Mischa Leinkauf/Matthias WermkeThe Berlinale Talent Campus #5 takes a good long look at“Home Affairs – Privacy, Films and Politics“, its focus for 2007.How does the “personal” home fit into the framework of anincreasingly globalised political world? “Home“ can meannumerous things: a bed for the night or where you wereborn, a place of comfort and safety or a place of fear andrepression. Home Affairs can be a private emotion, an explicitlypolitical agenda or a starting point for reflection onwhere you come from or where you are headed.The sense of being “at home”, whether by choice or by circumstance,has an enormous influence on the path a filmmaker’sproject may take. It is one’s “home base” that shapesevery aspect of film production, starting with the initial ideafor a new film and leading to the various decisions madeabout the genre, format, work methods, financial models,languages and routes of distribution.“The necessity for filmmakers to find their own path throughthe globalised film industry is perhaps the most importantthing that we can try to get across at the Campus“, says CampusDirector, Dorothee Wenner, to best describe the significanceof the focal theme.The globalisation of cinema also offers new resources whilesimultaneously rendering the necessary reaffirmation ofone’s own cinematic culture. On the one hand, there is astrong tendency worldwide to streamline cinema productioneyeing the variety of existing film markets. On theother hand, depending on where they are created, filmsare produced under very different conditions. Cinema is nolonger a western concept. It has a different home in differentcountries. So then whose Home Affairs are being portrayedin each individual film? People in Egypt, China, Nigeria orIndia often prefer watching movies produced in their owncountries, movies that tell stories from their own shores,show places familiar to them with stars hailing from similarcultural backgrounds. The same holds true for people inthe diaspora who are likely to desire films from the countriesof their origin. As such, Home Affairs, whether for the filmmakeror the audience, is the search for cultural identity inan increasingly globalised film industry.One of the strategies filmmakers use to empower themselvesis to create self-organised networks – film co-operatives– to discuss the problems of working as autonomousfilmmakers. Such independent initiatives are represented inthe Campus through the panel “Making Films With Friends”.Panelists will share their insight on what a co-operation isand how it can help when no infrastructure exists. The filmco-op concept has also taken on the form of a long-termsustainability project which is being initiated in three countriesthrough a collaborative effort of the Berlinale TalentCampus and the House of World Cultures.10BERLINALE TALENT CAMPUS #5