Festivals The 74th Berlin International Film Festival: 15th-25th February, 2024.
Main Competition: Highlights and Indifference
When Carlo Chatrian spoke in the Berlinale Competition program’s liner notes of being proud of the balance between well-known auteurs and new independent directors, the anticipation was positive. However, the overall impression of this year’s competition was either muted or an overall feeling of sub-standard quality in the most important section that has struggled to attain the best available films when compared to festivals like Rotterdam, which immediately precedes the Berlinale. Following the screening of the interesting but not so dynamic choice of Tim Mielants’ Small Things Like These as the opening film, the quality of the other nineteen films both varied and oscillated. In its World Premiere the Mexican entry La Cocina by Alonso Ruizpalacios certainly had a lot of energy. Mainly shot in black and white with occasional color inserts, it looks at the management and staff of a large New York restaurant called The Grill and the tense relationship between the kitchen staff after money goes missing from the till, resulting in all the employees being suspected. What it has in energy La Cocina ultimately lacks in originality, substance, or character alignment and allegiance.
Iranian Cinema has long since had a special relationship with the Berlinale, not just for the films but through sympathy for the directors who have often suffered from the political situation there. Competition entries from Iran have also done well with awards and critical acclaim. This year was no exception and the charming My Favourite Cake (Keyke mahboobe man) by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha had a positive reaction. Since her husband died, and with her daughter being based in Europe, 70-year-old Mahin has been living alone in Tehran, but after encouragement from friends she decides to try and to revitalise her love life. Soon, Mahin meets a Taxi driver and invites him to her home for dinner but this unexpected encounter and anticipation will also lead to an evening she will not forget. My Favourite Cake was one of the strongest entries in this year’s Main Competition and was one of the two films in competition that was supported by the World Cinema Fund. It was also a very charming and timeless story that avoided sentiment while proving one is never too old for loving company.
There were two films in competition that seemed to be a critique of modern science in not providing the happiness it was supposed to, but also seems to question whether that is in part due to individual human perception or expectation. In the US entry A Different Man by Aaron Schimberg, Edward (played by Sebastian Stan) is an aspiring actor in New York and undergoes a radical surgical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. As a result, he gets the dream role in a theatre production that he was hoping for. However, things start to take a turn for the worst and everything in his past life starts to become disturbingly the same as it was. In Another End, the Italian entry from director Piero Messina, Sal has been living only on memories since he lost Zoe, the love of his life. When he discovers Another End, a company that brings people back to life, Sal uses their services so that he can have a little more time with Zoe, and, ultimately, to say goodbye. However, this does not turn out to be the happy second chance at a farewell he was expecting.
The Covid-19 pandemic, still fresh in the memory, inspired the competition entry Suspended Time (Hors Du Temps) by Olivier Assayas. In April 2020 at the start of lockdown, a film director called Etienne and his brother Paul, a music journalist, spend time together in their remote childhood home in the French countryside, along with their new partners Morgane and Carole. Despite the picturesque setting, in this time of great adjustment they find the reality around them becomes increasingly unsettling, disturbing, and even strange, while not knowing exactly how long they have to live in this new normal. Another French film about displacement, but set after the pandemic, was the drama Foreign Language (Langue Étrangère) by Claire Burger. A 17-year-old schoolgirl from France called Fanny goes on a language exchange trip to Leipzig, Germany to meet her pen pal Lena who is the same age as her. Lena is also eager to become involved in political activism so the usually shy and withdrawn Fanny reinvents herself in a way she thinks will both impress and be more in tandem with Lena. However, it doesn’t quite work out that way and Fanny becomes trapped in her own contrived new persona.
With historical dramas also continuing to be a popular choice for film producers and directors, the Berlinale has always included at least some in its competition sections. Gloria is an Italian-Swiss co-production, and was both a World Premiere and debut feature film for director Margherita Vicario. It is set in the year 1800 somewhere not far from Venice at Sant Ignazio College, which is a decrepit old musical institute for girls. Also residing here is Teresa, a mute solitary maid who is tasked with the humblest chores and no one realizes that she possesses an extraordinary talent for music that becomes evident when she discovers a pianoforte in a storeroom. Suddenly, an amazing quartet of young women gather around Teresa and these overlooked talents will take the visiting Pope, and the rest of the world, by surprise. From Hilde, With Love (In Liebe, Eure Hilde) by Andreas Dresen is the harrowing biographical story of Hilde Coppi. In Berlin, 1942, Hilde gradually becomes more involved with a resistance group later known as the Red Orchestra. In the summer she falls in love with member of the group called Hans, helps him in his political activities, and will marry him and become pregnant. However, in the autumn the Gestapo will arrest members of the group, including Hans and Hilde. In prison she develops unexpected strength, especially after giving birth to her son, and hangs onto the memory of her beloved husband while awaiting her inevitable fate. While Gloria is more cinematic and From Hilde, With Love is more akin to TV film production, both films are nonetheless very engaging and with excellent acting and direction.
The variety of the Main Competition section was underlined by the documentary Architecton, a co-production of Germany, France and USA. Directed by Victor Kossakovsky, the focus is on a landscape project by the contemporary Italian architect and designer Michele De Lucchi. Director Kossakovsky uses a circle to reflect on the rise and fall of civilisations, juxtaposing some breath-taking imagery from the temple ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon, that dates back to AD 60, with the early 2023 destruction of cities in Turkey following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. Through Kossakovsky’s inquisitive lens, Architecton is at once both epic and intimate. This poetic meditation on architecture underlines how the design and construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal our destruction and with that knowledge there are lessons to be learnt for our hope and future survival, also underlining that the grandeur and folly of humanity has made for an increasingly precarious relationship with nature.
The Danish film Sons (Vogter) by Gustav Möller is a psychological thriller whose central protagonist Eva is an idealistic prison guard. However, she faces a huge dilemma when a young prisoner who is significant to her past is transferred to the prison where she works. Without revealing her secret to the higher prison staff, Eva asks to be moved to his block, also the toughest and most violent in the prison. From this point begins an unsettling trajectory in which Eva’s unwavering sense of justice will come into conflict with her morality that will subsequently put her personal safety and career at risk. More akin to the production values of a quality TV crime series, Sons nonetheless succeeds in providing a compelling narrative full of brutality, brooding, suspense and surprise.
There was also an entry in competition from South Asia, Shambhala, by Min Bahadur Bham, a co-production of Tibet and Nepal that was supported by the Doha Film Institute and had its World Premiere at the Berlinale. Set in the heart of the Nepalese Himalayas, Pema is a good-spirited young woman who happily embraces a polyandrous marriage with Tashi and his two younger brothers. Living harmoniously in this new life, circumstances change when Tashi fails to return from a trading trip to Lhasa, and the legitimacy of Pema’s unborn child is questioned by her community. Determined to prove her love and purity, she embarks on a quest to find Tashi, and accompanied at first by her brother-in-law, Karma, she heads into the Himalayan wilderness. However, as Karma is a monk, urgent duties call him back to the monastery and Pema is left to navigate the often harsh Himalayan terrain on her own. The search for her missing husband gradually becomes a spiritual search for meaning, and with every step self-discovery and liberation. A road movie with a difference, Shambhala exemplifies the serenity of another place, culture and customs, while portraying the ubiquitous and perennial human characteristics of love, loyalty and the importance of freedom.
The other film in the Main Competition that benefitted from The World Cinema Fund was Pepe, directed by Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias. The inclusion of Pepe meant it was one of the most unique and surprising entries into this year’s competition, so much that Carlo Chatrian considered the film unclassifiable as it featured a hybrid of genres and styles. Also a co-production between Dominican Republic, Namibia, Germany, and France, Pepe was filmed in locations in Namibia and Colombia. In a most original and often humorous way, the director merges documentary and fiction and where the central character, hero and victim is a hippopotamus called ‘Pepe’ (a name coined by the media) who reflects on its life as a stranger in a strange land. Pepe was transported from his homeland in Africa to Colombia and, after residing in the private zoo of drug lord Pablo Escobar, it became the first and last hippo of its kind to be slain in the Americas, only to return in the form of a ghost. From this premise we are drawn into a world of many stories, and sub-stories, that fluctuate between solemnness and humour, truthfulness and deception. The stories are 'narrated' by the animal that has no perception of place or time, or even if its voice is its own, only that it is no longer alive. The voice of Pepe is a little strange to digest at first with its hooting and grunting, but once that settles, combined with the other sounds and images chosen, locations themselves serve as a powerful dialogue where creatures like Pepe were to meet their harrowing fate at the hands of humans without ever knowing the reasoning behind it. Refuting any publicity for the notorious Colombian drug lord, Pepe serves as a footnote to that saga and is dreamily reimagined as a hippo’s reflection on life and mortality.
The Main Prize Winners
All films in the Main Competition were eligible for the Golden Bear. The winner of the main prize was Dahomey, directed by Mati Diop. A documentary running at 67 minutes, the main protagonists were 26 objects from the Kingdom of Dahomey that in 2021 were returned from Paris to present-day Benin many years after they were looted by French colonialists. The documentary subsequently focuses on how these art treasures should now be accommodated in their homeland, many years after they were stolen and in a country that has since moved on. The award of the Golden Bear for a documentary for the second year running (following On the Adamant's win in 2023) was seen as an indication by some journalists to represent a current decline for the narrative feature film and therefore for the significance of the Golden Bear despite the motivation of the award being a political one.
The presence of Isabelle Huppert in A Traveller’s Needs by Hong Sang-soo certainly did its profile no harm and it was to win the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. Renowned French director Bruno Dumont’s The Empire (L’Empire) won the Silver Bear Jury Prize in a film that has been inferred as a parody of the Star Wars franchise. After a ‘special’ baby is born in a quiet fishing village on the Opal Coast in Northern France, two opposing forces from the depths of outer space unleash an apocalyptic conflict. Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias was deservedly awarded the Silver Bear for Best Director for Pepe, whereas the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance went to Sebastian Stan for his role in A Different Man. The Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance went to Emily Watson for her role as Sister Mary, the corrupt Mother Superior of the convent in Small Things like These. Another German competition entry, Dying (Sternben), concerns an estranged family of mother, father, son and daughter. However, faced with death they agree to meet each other again. The film was directed by Matthias Glasner for which he also wrote the script and he was bestowed the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay. Finally, the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution went to Martin Gschlacht for his haunting and visually stunning exploration of the human psyche in the Austrian-German co-production The Devil’s Bath (Des Teufels Bad), a historical period drama written and directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala.
All Change Again: The Berlinale’s Future
Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian’s five-years as Berlinale co-directors came to an end with many wondering what direction the Berlinale would have taken if they had been granted a few more years in a more stable operating environment. After the two exhausting years of 2021 and 2022 dominated by the corona pandemic, the 2023 edition was a mixture of relief as well as modest expectations. Knowing that the directors only had the stable first edition in 2020, which in itself didn’t carry heightened expectations because of their being new co-directors, 2024 would be the first edition where it would be fairer to assess the still new co-director team. However, after the 2023 edition with all the changes and cuts being imposed, there was now no real time to judge what Frau Rissenbeek and Herr Chatrian could have achieved for the Berlinale as a place of freedom of expression in the years ahead. Also, a sometimes overheated and toxic media landscape didn’t help, nor did the political discourse, and it would have been more respectful to allow the outgoing festival management to have been able to focus on the program and celebrate cinema in their final edition without internal or external noises being made.
Just some challenges that will be inherited by their successor Tricia Tuttle include: the budget concerns, the death of the cinemas around Potsdamer Platz and, with the reality that there will be a void there, the lack of a true centre for the festival. However, one big positive that the co-directors leave is attendance. With just under 330,000 tickets sold in 2024, the euphoria of the visitors and their enthusiasm, curiosity and passion for cinema, and the Berlinale itself, were totally evident where it mattered. Furthermore, the evidently good-humoured new festival director Tricia Tuttle can offer a fresh start free of controversy, internal conflicts, and provincialism. With 25 years of film and film festival experience, including as a recent director for five years at the BFI London Film Festival, she is currently Head of Directing Fiction at the UK’s prestigious National Film and TV School. All this bodes well to have a festival director with experience of a big film festival as well as being involved on the film production side with prodigious film talent, the life blood that many sections of the Berlinale always need. The Minister of State for Culture and the Media in Germany, Claudia Roth, commended Tuttle’s modernisation of the London Film Festival for the digital age and an increase in its audience numbers. Roth was also convinced of Tuttle’s clear plans for the Berlinale with a modern, team-orientated festival management, and sustainable support for young talent. Tuttle herself has expressed how the Berlinale shows cinema as a most vibrant and often magical art form that helps shape how we see the world and understand each other. She also considers it a thrill and privilege to have the opportunity to lead this important film festival into the future.
By Steven Yates
