Curtains up!

In the film “My Little Sister”, Nina Hoss plays a woman who hopes to bring her cancer-stricken brother back onto the stage. The award-winning actress speaks about the power of art – and how a family deals with the subject of dying.

This year the programme selection includes several films in which Berlin plays the leading role. What do these films tell about Berlin – or what does Berlin tell the audience?

No longer Dieter Kosslick, but Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian: Can you feel the “wind of change” through the change at the top and if so, how does it manifest itself?

According to Carlo Chatrian, the competition films look rather illusion-free at the present. Is the gloom of the films appropriate or would a positive, constructive view of the world be desirable?

The 70th Berlinale was the premiere for the new management team, Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek. Have they been able to get the Berlinale going artistically and curatorially?

Russian director Andrey Gryazev strings together innumerable clips of grass-roots appeals to President Putin: the result is a kaleidoscope of political expression from the Russian heartland.

Social media is the window into people’s lives that’s constantly left ajar. This modern type of closeness was captured not only in film scripts at the Berlinale, but artists used it as a medium to tell tales of today.

What is actually the situation of European film in India? Anjana Singh finds out more at the European Film Market (EFM), one of the important marketplaces for promoting films.

Pak and Hoi are two exemplary, caring family men in their twilight years who meet by chance in Hong Kong – and fall in love. “Suk Suk” is a warm, sensitive exploration of their romance.

“Sow the Wind”, a film by Danilo Caputo set way down in southern Italy, portrays a young woman torn between family traditions and the exigencies of modern society.

One of the best moments of a film festival is when there is utter perplexity in the auditorium about the direction of a work. This is exactly what happened during the screening of the film “The Salt of Tears”, which the veteran Philippe Garrel presented in the Berlinale’s 2020 competition.

Like the acclaimed and applauded Sweet Country and The Nightingale, Stephen Maxwell Johnson’s potent outback western High Ground interrogates the country’s colonial history.

Javier Fernández Vázquez is co-founder of the experimental and documentary film collective Los Hijos, which has created numerous key works in these genres. In the “Forum” section, the director presents his solo debut “Anunciaron tormenta”.

World premiere for the movie “Time to Hunt” by Korean director Yoon Sung-hyun – and for the audience an exceptional cineastic experience.

The visual artist Aline Motta works with video, photography and installation to reinterpret memory and thus give new meaning to the present. Her search for her family's genealogy has resulted in a trilogy that evokes Brazil's colonial and slavery-torn past.

If your only chance of staying alive is to flee your own country, what can you do but get out? “Welcome to Chechnya”, screening in the Panorama section of the Berlinale, is a documentary film about the systematic persecution of LGBTQI people in Chechnya and activists’ efforts to extract and protect them.

The Berlinale 2020 has undergone a reshuffling at the top: Carlo Chatrian is its new artistic director, working alongside the festival’s new executive director, Mariette Rissenbeek. In this interview, Chatrian talks about films as a mirror of troubled times and about the inestimable importance of the film-going public.

Three films in this year’s competition, “Berlin Alexanderplatz”, “Undine” and “Schwesterlein”, are set in Berlin. They’re about crime, love and death.

Between racism and absurd expectations: Several films in the “Panorama” section explore post-migrant perspectives on Germany.

An erstwhile king of melodrama: the retrospective on King Vidor celebrates this almost-forgotten Hollywood legend.

Ranging from a horror film to a portrait of a Bavarian family – the next-gen filmmakers’ section “Perspektive Deutsches Kino” explores a complicated issue.

Some big changes are coming to Germany's biggest and biggest-name film festival this year. Here’s the lowdown on what’s new at the Berlinale 2020.
 

Post-war glamour and glory, scandalous films and a movie star on the red carpet wearing a paper bag over his head: some highlights from the tumultuous history of the world’s biggest film festiva