The 74e Berlinale opens Thursday with a promising program, and notable guests will be there, including Martin Scorsese, Rooney Mara and Isabelle Huppert. But these stars and their films are overshadowed these days by heated debates over the festival’s stance on the war in the Middle East and the canceled invitation of far-right politicians to the opening ceremony.
Three Quebec filmmakers are ones to watch. Meryam Joobeur has carved out a place for herself in competition with Where we come from, his first feature film. Philippe Lesage presents his latest film, Like firein the Generation section, dedicated to films for young people, and Oksana Karpovych appears in the Forum section, more experimental, with her feature-length documentary Intercepted.