The 72nd Berlinale in brief | The Press

Marc-Andre Lussier
The Press

The hardest thing for Emma Thompson

During a press conference before the official screening of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Emma Thompson confided about a scene of nudity which marks the last act of the film. “I wouldn’t be able to look myself in a mirror like the character does. We’re not used to seeing normal bodies in movies, and we women have been conditioned our whole lives to hate our bodies. Do the exercise: sit in front of your mirror, completely naked, stand still, look at yourself, and accept your body for what it is. It’s the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my entire acting career. Recall that in this dramatic comedy by Sophie Hyde, presented in the Berlinale Special section, the British actress plays a 55-year-old woman who uses the services of a sex worker.

The effect of images, according to Rithy Panh

Winner of the Berlinale Best Documentary Award two years ago thanks to IrradiatedRithy Panh offers this year, in official competition, Everything Will Be OK, a documentary essay echoing a world now ruled by animals, which replay on screen the atrocities committed by men up to that point. “It took me back to the days of those great modern filmmakers – Dziga Vertov, Fritz Lang – who had already described the world of industrialization, work and propaganda, and made it possible to take a journey through the history of cinema to arrive at TikTok. It is interesting to think of the effect these images have today, at a time when democracy is more fragile than ever. Donald Trump ruled with messages on social networks and he decided the fate of the world from his mobile phone. What is the role of cinema in such a context? What should we do? The cinema cannot solve problems, but it exists! »

Seen in competition

In the running for the Golden Bear, Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush is inspired by a true story, that of Rabiye Kurnaz (Meltem Kaptan), mother of a son, Murat, who, shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, was arrested in Afghanistan, suspected of terrorism and sent to the Guantanamo prison. The film by Andreas Dresen (Grill Point) describes the fight led by this German of Turkish origin, living in Bremen, up to the Supreme Court of the United States in order to have her son freed, certainly innocent in her eyes, which is confirmed by all the reports. Even if the story puts a lot of emphasis on the efforts of the German lawyer Bernhard Docke (Alexander Scheer) and his support for the cause of this family, this film does not borrow at all the same tone as The Mauritian. It is moreover this very frank desire to present the daily life of this woman with a very strong temperament that somewhat sinks the matter, insofar as the hand of the scriptwriters is sometimes too heavy.