The competition for the coveted trophies has begun at the International Film Festival in Berlin. 19 films compete for the Golden Bear and the Silver variants of the award. Jury President Kristen Stewart will join other filmmakers in deciding where the bears go.
Three films were in the program on Friday, the first day of the competition. These include “The Survival of Kindness” by Rolf de Heer about a woman’s struggle for survival in the Australian desert and “BlackBerry” by Matt Johnson about flights of fancy and the crash of the smartphone of the same name.
Emily Atef’s film “One Day We’ll Tell Each Other Everything” is also in the running. It is based on a novel by Daniela Krien. The book is about a young woman who lives in the countryside of East Germany. There, a relationship develops with an older man. The story takes place in the summer of 1990.
The team worked with an intimacy coordinator to help set up the sex scenes. They rehearsed every single movement step by step, said actress Marlene Burow.
The director is reminiscent of Iranian filmmakers in exile
On Friday, director Sepideh Farsi highlighted the importance of Iranian filmmakers in exile. “It’s up to us to raise our voice for the revolt and the revolution in Iran while we still can. With our films or with our words and our gestures,” she said of her animated film “La Sirène”. The production deals with the Iraq-Iran war and takes place in 1980.
The Berlinale also wants to remind people of the situation in Iran. Farsi addressed a solidarity demonstration with the country on the red carpet planned for this Saturday at the Berlinale Palast. Born in Tehran in 1965, the Farsi said on Friday that none of her films had previously been shown in Iran.
“Wikipedia has a shortage of women in many areas”
At the same time as the Berlinale, more women from the film industry should have their own entry in the German-language edition of Wikipedia and thus become more digitally visible. The contributions are also to be created at a three-day writing workshop that began on Friday in Berlin. “Wikipedia has a lack of women in many areas, including entries about filmmakers,” said co-initiator Elke Koepping.
Of the approximately 890,000 biographies in the German-language Wikipedia, just 17.3 percent are about women, said Koepping. In the approximately 77,000 biographies about filmmakers, it is about 35 percent. Accordingly, there are deficits above all in the professions behind the camera, such as directors, camera women and screenwriters.
Along with Cannes and Venice, the Berlinale is one of the most important film festivals. The Berlinale wants to show a total of around 280 films in around a week and a half.
