EXBERLINER Issue 168, February 2018

WHAT’S ON — Berlinale 2018
PRO/CON
Back in November, 79 German filmmakers wrote an open letter in Spiegel
magazine that declared the Berlinale “the weakest of all the major film festivals”,
placing the blame squarely at the feet of director Dieter Kosslick. With
Kosslick’s contract running out after next year’s festival, the time has come
to ask: Just how weak is his Berlinale? Our critics disagree.
P
R
O
MORE RELEVANT
THAN EVER!
When the likes of Oscar nominee
Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann) and
Golden Globe winner Fatih Akin
(In The Fade) denounce their homegrown
showcase, it’s easy to be swayed by all of the
negativity. Don’t listen to these guys, though.
After all, they literally make money by creating
drama. In reality, the Berlinale still plays
a vital role on the festival circuit, and is more
important than ever before.
Since its inception in 1951, the Berlinale
has continued opening up to other
cultures in ways that Sundance and Venice
can’t hope to match. Yes, the Venice film
festival usually awards films that initially
fly under the radar, but the programme
as a whole is more fixated on Hollywood,
much like Sundance, which recently
awarded a top prize to the Netflix venture
Where else can cinemagoers
find such a wide
range of queer, international
and political movies
without working as an
industry insider?
I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore.
In contrast, the Berlinale consistently
celebrates left-field projects that bring
challenging world cinema to the masses.
Where else but the Berlinale would Ildikó
Enyedi’s On Body And Soul, a story of love
in a Hungarian abattoir, ever find the widescale
recognition it deserves?
Those quick to critique the Berlinale’s
“inferior” programming or argue that Golden
Bear contenders fail to perform
well outside of the festival need
look no further than the Oscar
shortlist for Best Foreign
Language Film. Alongside
Enyedi’s 2017 Golden Bear
winner, the Academy has
also included the Berlinaletested
likes of Alain Gomis’
Félicité and Sebastián Lelio’s
A Fantastic Woman in this year’s
running. Not bad for “the weakest
of all the major film festivals”, eh?
Even if A Fantastic Woman doesn’t earn
Chile its first major win at the Oscars,
Lelio’s film has already won the only award
that matters where LGBTQ audiences are
concerned: the Teddy, a Berlinale trophy
given to films that illuminate the queer
experience. Venice and Cannes now have
their own versions of the award, created
in 2007 and 2010 respectively, but Berlin
has been celebrating every colour of the
cinematic rainbow since 1987, when Pedro
Almodóvar scooped up the first Teddy for
Law of Desire. Other high-profile winners
have included Paris is Burning, The Way he
Looks and Keep the Lights On.
Critics who lament the fact that last year’s
queer blockbusters God’s Own Country and
Call Me by Your Name premiered at Sundance
before screening at the Berlinale
would do well to remember that this kind
of comparatively “commercial” fare is more
suited to other festivals anyway. By its very
definition, queer filmmaking will always
operate on the fringe, so it’s commendable
that the Berlinale continues to highlight
alternative picks like Tristan Milewski’s gay
cruise documentary Dream Boat and Shu
Lea Cheang’s futuristic sex odyssey Fluidø.
Cheang told us how much she valued the
“diverse, intelligent, cultivated audience”
that “difficult” screenings such as Fluidø
attract, explaining that in the coming
years, she expects to see
“hipper, bolder programming
with deep roots in local and
international film communities.”
These deep roots
are what help politicise
the Berlinale in ways that
inspire audiences like no
other, branching out beyond
the programme’s unrivalled
queer credentials into alternative
spheres of thought and culture.
In recent years, critics have suggested
that the Berlinale has lost much of its political
edge. Clearly, those critics weren’t present
at the introduction of the international
jury last year, or they would have heard
Mexican actor Diego Luna protest Trump’s
wall-building policies, explaining, “There’s
no better place to send a message than
Berlin.” Just one year earlier, jury president
Meryl Streep described Golden Bear-winning
Fuocoammare (Fire At Sea) as “urgent,
imaginative and necessary filmmaking”.
To dismiss the festival’s lack of political
discourse is to also dismiss the political
message of Berlinale films like Gianfranco
Rosi’s documentary, which shone an unsettling
light on the struggle that migrants face
trying to reach the European mainland.
At the Golden Globes this year, the
Time’s Up movement drew focus more than
the movies themselves, reminding us once
Maximilian Bühn CC BY 4.0
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EXBERLINER 168