At the beginning of the 74th Berlinale | EUROtoday

UOf all of the dreary locations in Berlin's February grey, Potsdamer Platz is likely one of the dreariest. And as if the district wished to lastly put an finish to this space, which has by no means been greater than a simulation of urbanity for the reason that redevelopment, the Alte Potsdamer Straße, which ends up in the Berlinale Palace, has now been transformed right into a cute pedestrian zone. If you don't have the climate of Cannes, the structure of Venice and just one cinema in a musical theatre, you'll be blissful to overlook out on different points of interest.

In any case, the Berlinale is a pageant that doesn't have a straightforward time sustaining its significance. Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian have been unfortunate from the beginning of their time period in workplace. In 2020, the primary time, the shadow of the assault in Hanau fell on the pageant, then got here the pandemic and finances cuts, now there was bother over two AfD MPs who have been invited to the opening gala after which disinvited once more.

The undeniable fact that Chatrian ensured a higher profile by way of content material than his predecessor did him little good. And when the State Minister for Culture solely gave him the choice of resigning by choosing the director mannequin, the protests from greater than 400 administrators from everywhere in the world didn't assist.

A 14 hour movie

Whether the Rissenbeek/Chatrian division of labor doesn't work, whether or not Chatrian didn't become involved sufficient with the difficult Berlin setting, as has been rumored repeatedly, is now irrelevant. This Berlinale shall be Chatrian's final as inventive director. How individuals will bear in mind his quick time period in workplace in comparison with his predecessors De Hadeln and Kosslick can’t be stated and not using a time lag.

This textual content comes from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

Chatrian says goodbye poetically: “Images like trees that defy the storm” are what the movies are meant to point out. There are 236 together with the quick movie packages this 12 months; in 2023 there have been 287, however the sheer amount didn’t assure increased high quality in earlier years both. The variety of world premieres within the competitors is right: 19 out of 20 movies.

Andreas Dresen is there once more from Germany with “In Love, Your Hilde”, the story of the resistance fighter Hilde Coppi in Berlin in 1942. Matthias Glasner can be an previous pal within the competitors, he’s displaying “Die” with Corinna Harfouch and Lars Eidinger.

However, the actually huge names are lacking from this system. Bruno Dumont and Olivier Assayas, Abderrahmane Sissako and Hong Sang-soo are lighthouses on the planet of cineastes. The celeb shall be introduced into the home once more in 2024 with the awarding of the Honorary Bear: Martin Scorsese shall be arriving.

What to anticipate within the different sections? Chatrian's invention, the “Encounters” collection, depends on a complicated inventive providing. When it involves “Berlinale Special” and “Berlinale Special Gala”, no one understands to this present day what standards qualify a movie for these sections. In any case, one movie may be very particular: “exergue – on documenta 14” by Dimitris Athiridis, which is about Documenta 2017 in a record-breaking 14 hours.

A tough development website

You can look ahead to “The Other Cinema” within the retrospective: German movies past the canon, from Thomas Brasch to Roland Klick and Christoph Schlingensief, there’s a lot that you just want to see once more with out having to get nostalgic. And additionally it is very pleasing to lastly have the ability to see a documentary by Romuald Karmakar once more within the International Forum part: “The Invisible Zoo”.

This 12 months, the Forum is saying goodbye to its Arsenal cinema within the Sony Center, from which the movie museum, movie college and cinema library may even have to maneuver into an unsure future. This signifies that virtually every thing that was presupposed to make Potsdamer Platz a middle of the movie has disappeared. An awesome sign!

It is unclear what’s going to occur when the rental settlement for the musical theater expires in 2025 and whether or not the Berlinale will select to increase it. The pageant additionally stays a tough development website for the brand new director Tricia Tuttle. She comes from London with fame. But that alone received't assist her in Berlin.