The 74e Berlinale opens Thursday with a promising lineup and notable guests, 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.
The most popular cinema event in the world (more than 320,000 spectators in 2023) is used to rubbing shoulders with political news. Last year, Volodymyr Zelensky gave a vibrant opening speech there, thanking the Berlinale for having programmed several Ukrainian films and repainting his Golden Bear in yellow and blue, the colors of Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the organization was called upon to take a position on the war raging in Gaza.
But at a time when the German government, which subsidizes the festival to the tune of 10 million euros per year, prides itself on offering unwavering support to Israel and when artists accuse the country’s cultural industry of repressing voices Palestinians, the operation turns out to be delicate to say the least.
Indeed, a boycott campaign was launched last January by more than 500 artists, including Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux, calling on creators to renounce collaborating with German associations financed by the state.
This is why the management of the Berlinale wanted to express, in a press release published a few days later, its support for “all the victims of humanitarian crises, in the Middle East and elsewhere”. However, dozens of festival employees asked in an open letter on Tuesday for a “stronger institutional position”, deploring “inertia in the cultural sector in Germany”.
One controversy does not wait for the other: the Berlinale was also criticized from all sides for having invited elected officials from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to its opening ceremony, as it does for all parties sitting in the Bundestag. Faced with protests and calls for demonstrations, management disinvited these controversial elected officials last week.
Losing influence?
This year is also the last for Carlo Chatrian (artistic director) and Mariëtte Rissenbeek (general director) at the head of the event. The German Minister of Culture announced in December that the American Tricia Tuttle would occupy the two positions alone next year. Many hope that this former director of the London Film Festival will be able to bring more Hollywood stars to the Berlinale and attract new sponsors.
Time is running out, since private partners who contributed a third of the organization’s budget, such as Audi and L’Oréal, withdrew last year, reported the Hollywood Reporter. In the process, sections of the festival were completely withdrawn. And fewer films are being presented this year: nearly 200, compared to 287 in 2023.
Many critics even claim that the Berlinale is losing its influence within the international festival circuit, deploring its increasingly specialized selection, devoid of productions from the major Hollywood studios. However, Carlo Chatrian’s authorial signature remains highly appreciated by the filmmakers themselves. In September, 300 personalities from the film industry, including Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, even signed an open letter to denounce his ouster.
This year’s programming is nevertheless seen as a tour de force from Carlo Chatrian before his departure. Big names in world auteur cinema, such as Hong Sang-soo, Mati Diop, Bruno Dumont and Olivier Assayas, are competing for the Golden Bear, which will be awarded by the jury chaired by actress Lupita Nyong’o . And none other than the eternal Martin Scorsese will receive the Honorary Golden Bear for his entire career.
Local filmmakers
Out of competition, we notice the Canadians Atom Egoyan and Bruce LaBruce as well as the French André Téchiné and Christine Angot. The latter presents her first film, A familyan autofictional documentary which, in the manner of his novels, like Incestdeals with her traumatic relationship with her father.
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.
Denis Côté is also back at the Berlinale. The one who won the Best Director award in the Encounters section in 2021, with Social hygieneis in the jury of said section, a parallel selection devoted to cinema “aesthetically and structurally daring”.
However, it is with a more conventional film, from the competition, that the big Berlin event opens on Thursday evening. Small Things like These stars Cillian Murphy in a historical drama set in rural Ireland in the 1980s, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Claire Keegan. Will this curtain raiser be able to give films, so far erased by political debates, their rightful place at the Berlinale? Let’s hope so.
Olivier Du Ruisseau is staying in Berlin thanks to the support of the Berlinale and Telefilm Canada.