International Film Festival
Director Petzold is on the Berlinale jury this year
Christian Petzold was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for his film “Red Sky”. photo
© Annette Riedl/dpa
In 2023 he was awarded a Silver Bear. Now director Christian Petzold himself sits on the Berlinale’s international jury.
The Italian actress Jasmine Trinca (“My Wife’s Story”) and the Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko (“The Longest Book Tour”) are also on the jury.
The Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”) is leading the committee this year. Petzold was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlinale in 2023 for the drama “Red Sky”. The 63-year-old also received a Silver Bear in 2012 for “Barbara”. The international jury will decide who will receive the Golden Bear and the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, which starts on February 15th. The winners will be announced on February 24th.
Berlinale demands freedom of travel for Iranian directors
The Berlinale has demanded freedom of expression and travel for two Iranian directors of a competition film. A travel ban to Berlin has been imposed on filmmakers Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, the Berlinale announced. Their passports were confiscated and they were threatened with legal proceedings because of their work as artists.
The festival’s management duo reacted with dismay: “We call on the Iranian authorities to return the passports and lift all restrictions that prevent Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha from traveling to Berlin in February,” said Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek, according to a statement.
The drama, titled “Keyke mahboobe man” (“My Favorite Cake”), is scheduled to run in competition this year. It’s about a woman in the Iranian capital Tehran who wants to pursue her desires against society’s expectations. Moghaddam and Sanaeeha had already shown their film “Ballad of a White Cow” in the Berlinale competition in 2021.
It was only in November 2023 that the famous Iranian actress Hanieh Tavassoli was sentenced by a court to six months in prison. Tavassoli and other colleagues found themselves in the crosshairs of the judiciary during the wave of protests in autumn 2022 because they had shown solidarity with the women’s movement. Since then, in addition to short-term imprisonment, they have also been banned from working by the Ministry of Culture.
The protests were triggered by the death of the young Iranian Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini in September 2022. She was arrested by the moral police because a few strands of hair were visible under her headscarf. She died in police custody.