film festival
Berlinale: Festival deletes films and sections
The Berlinale has to save. photo
© Paul Zinken/dpa
Rising prices and price spirals ensure savings are made even without cuts. With the Berlinale, it is now hitting a cultural figurehead in Germany. The cuts are drastic.
Almost a third fewer films, entire sections deleted – the As one of the largest film festivals in the world, the Berlinale has committed itself to drastic austerity measures. In the coming year, the Berlin International Film Festival will therefore shorten its programme. There are fewer films and entire sections are being dissolved. The festival announced this today.
The Berlinale leaders Mariëtte Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian evaluated the festival structure. As a result, the program is to be concentrated and the organization restructured. “Cultural institutions and festivals – like many other areas of society – are affected by significant cost increases with the same budgets,” said the management duo.
“The measures published today in the program will enable savings, some immediately and some in the years to come,” said Rissenbeek of the German Press Agency in Berlin. “An exact number is not yet possible at this point in time.” After taking office in 2020 and the first joint Berlinale, the duo wanted to further develop the festival and structures. “Then, however, two pandemic years followed, which demanded very unique formats,” says Rissenbeek. After normalization this year, further development was tackled again. “A rethinking of the structures had already begun, the current economic situation has of course pushed this even further.”
The total number of films will be reduced by almost a third. At the 74th edition from February 15th to 25th, around 200 productions are to be shown, this year there were 287. All sections, with the exception of the competition, are to show fewer films.
According to the information, the omitted sections include the “Perspective German Cinema” with young German films or the “Berlinale Series” for series productions.
Among the most important festivals such as Cannes or Venice, the Berlinale is the film festival with the strongest audience. Around 320,000 tickets were sold this year, which is almost the same as before the corona pandemic with 330,000 tickets in 2020.
For many years, the financing of the Berlinale was divided roughly equally between ticket sales, sponsorship and federal funds. There have already been sensitive cuts in sponsorship recently.
The federal government was last involved with 10.7 million euros, this year there were also 2.2 million euros extra because of the Corona consequences. According to information from Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens), the draft for 2024 contains 11.1 million euros.
The Berlinale plans are important and necessary “in order to react appropriately to rising general costs and falling sponsorship income,” said a spokeswoman. Since the Berlinale generates around two-thirds of its budget itself, even increasing government grants cannot compensate for all the additional expenditure and reduced income. The Berlinale sharpens its profile without damaging the core of the brand as the world’s largest public festival.