Titel Kino 1/2002 - German Cinema

Dieter Kosslick
Interview with Dieter Kosslick Director of the Berlin International Film Festival
What has been the biggest change for you personally between
your work as executive director of the Filmstiftung NRW
and as director of the Berlinale?
The biggest change is that I am now seeing completed films rather
than having to read scripts. It’s really quite a different business.
The second big difference is that film funding was done during the
whole year whereas here I am spending a whole year to prepare
for a twelve-day event. In fact, it’s a historic chance because in
2002 I will have the great fortune to be able to show films like
Heaven which I financed while I was still at the Filmstiftung.
At the same time, there are many things in common: it is a highly
communicative job and it’s one where you should have a certain
degree of diplomatic skills.
Was your work at the Filmstiftung NRW good preparation
for what you are now doing in Berlin?
If one can speak at all of preparation, yes, my previous work in
Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and at the European Film
Distribution Office and my connections with different sections of
the industry was an important background. Most of the festival
directors are born to do this. With me, this happened after twenty
years of preparation (smiling)!
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You are not completely new to the festival game as you were
involved in the Low Budget Film Forum at the end of the 1980s?
Yes, I got a hint of the passion of making festivals at the Low
Budget Film Forum, of how great it can be to put together
a certain program with a particular statement. In Hamburg, we
had to focus only on low budget and Europe, whereas at the
Berlinale one has to take much more into consideration. I think
my motto here would be to say: ”accept diversity“.
What, in your opinion, should a festival offer its audience – to the
professionals and the general public?
“ACCEPT
This is one of the few festivals with such a large participation by
the general public – 400,000 tickets were sold at the Berlinale
last year. The balancing act between addressing the normal
cinemagoers and the professional visitors is enormous. But the
people who often take a week or so off work to come to the
festival are not ”normal cinemagoers“, they want to see something
different, unusual, something that they wouldn’t normally be able
to see in the cinema.
Kino 1/2002