Competition of the Berlinale – Culture

For hypochondriacs, the Berlinale was a challenge even without Omikron. The festival soundtrack, owed to February in Berlin, is always an orchestral sneeze, rattle, throat clearing and cough drop unwrapping. The latter is a cultural technique that becomes particularly terrible when several hundred users in the Berlinale Palast on Potsdamer Platz try to practice it silently at the same time. That’s impossible, of course, and over the years you’ve yelled at many a seatmate in the face to put that damn mint in your mouth and shut up.

When the number of infections rose and rose in the past few weeks, hardly anyone believed that the Berlinale would take place as a face-to-face festival. All the classic winter viruses plus Corona celebrating a host blind date party at the largest German film festival? It was rumored that a transfer to the summer was being discussed internally. But the Berlinale bosses Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, who have been in office since 2019, absolutely wanted to stick to the February date. You can understand that from their point of view. The big festivals, especially Berlin, Cannes and Venice, are in fierce competition for the best films, the biggest stars; if the Berlinale were positioned exactly between Cannes (May) and Venice (August/September), the battle would be even tougher than it already is.

The film industry fears the final Netflixization, so a real festival is just the thing

Rissenbeek, Chatrian and their team have developed a concept to make the Berlinale possible despite Corona, and the Berlin authorities have approved it. It starts on February 10th, with reduced capacity and FFP2 masks, and without the otherwise obligatory parties and receptions. Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth proudly called the decision a “signal to the entire film industry”, which was and is so shaken by the pandemic and fears the final Netflixization.

Of course she’s right about that. It is a signal, especially for cinema as a cultural institution. When Rissenbeek and Chatrian presented the films of the official competition on Wednesday (without an audience, via live stream), people were even more curious than usual about the works they were announcing there. Because in recent years (even under the former festival director Dieter Kosslick), the Berlinale has unfortunately often only occupied the place behind Cannes and Venice in terms of yield, even without Corona. Nothing against cinematic art and experiments, against long-serving but still unknown auteur filmmakers, against new discoveries and focus series on hitherto neglected film nations in the most remote corners of the world. But as an A festival you also need a bit of glamour.

It takes Lars von Trier raising his fist at photographers on the red carpet to show he has the letters F, U, C and K tattooed on his knuckles. You need Quentin Tarantino, who has half the Hollywood A-league cast of actors in the tow of his new movie. It takes Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman to get a crowd craning their necks curiously at the Berlinale Palace despite minus five degrees and sleet.

Taking a film into the competition that has already been shown elsewhere? Since they would laugh in Cannes

Unfortunately, the Berlinale often only manages to get one real star and two or three half stars. Then at eight in the evening a poor Filipino director sneaks almost unnoticed to his world premiere, who would also benefit if there were a bit more hype overall. Of course, there have also been missing years in Cannes, in which far too many filmmakers who were completely unknown to the public showed each other who made the longer black-and-white film. But in Cannes at least the sea glitters in the early summer sun, and Tarantino still comes, and Cate Blanchett waves from the Palais des Festivals. So the question is: were the Berlinale organizers able to put together a program that justifies a face-to-face event in the midst of the Omicron storm? A program that is a statement that marks the territory of the festival?

If you look at the 18 titles presented in the competition on Wednesday, the answer is unfortunately: no.

Of course there are a few exciting names. François Ozon, one of the best directors in Europe, will open the festival with his tragic comedy “Peter von Kant”, a variation of Fassbinder’s classic “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant”. German cinema is also well represented. The wonderful Andreas Dresen shows “Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush” about Murat Kurnaz’s mother, who moved from her terraced house in Bremen to the Supreme Court her son from Guantanamo to get released. And the director Nicolette Krebitz (“Wild”) shows “AEIOU – The Fast Alphabet of Love”.

Open detailed view

Otherwise, however, reigns alongside the recipient of the Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement (Isabelle Huppert) rather glamor poverty. The good Hollywood connections of Cannes and Venice no longer seem to exist in Berlin. There is no other way to explain why a film like “Call Jane” with Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver finds its way into the competition, even though it will celebrate its world premiere at the Sundance Festival in January. Competition films that another festival already had? Those responsible in Cannes would only laugh indignantly.

Of course, photographers will not be completely out of work in February. One or the other celebrity is already represented, for example Charlotte Gainsbourg in the competition entry “Les passagers de la nuit”, a film title that, in its pathetic beauty, only the French can dream up. If you add the side rows, there are a few celebrities there too, for example through the Nick Cave documentary “This Much I Know To Be True”. But that the Berlinale still wants to cheat its way through an A-league festival with a B-program, you can’t shake this feeling.

Of course, this is a judgment based on the program booklet, the films will follow first. But they will have to be very good, with real discoveries for film history, despite the rather unknown names, if the Berlinale is to assert its status as one of the three major European films with this selection want to claim film festivals.