The 76th Berlin Film Festival, usually called the Berlinale, drew to a close yesterday after 10 days in which the 22 films in competition were often overshadowed by a row over the role politics should play in filmmaking.
The controversy erupted at the beginning of the festival, when jury president Wim Wenders answered a question about the German government’s support for Israel by saying: “We cannot really enter the field of politics.”
Films had the power to “change the world,” but in a different way from party politics, he said.
Photo: Reuters
“No movie has ever changed the ideas of a politician, but we can change the idea that people have of how they should live,” Wenders said.
However, his comments in response to the question on Israel prompted a storm of outrage.
Award-winning Indian novelist Arundhati Roy, who had been due to present a restored version of a 1989 film she wrote, pulled out of the event, branding Wender’s words “unconscionable” and “jaw-dropping.”
On Tuesday, a letter signed by dozens of film industry figures, including actor Javier Bardem, actress Tilda Swinton and producer Adam McKay, condemned the festival’s “silence on the genocide of Palestinians.”
The letter, drafted by the Film Workers for Palestine collective, accused the Berlinale of being involved in “censoring artists who oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the German state’s key role in enabling it.”
Director Tricia Tuttle has firmly rejected the accusations, describing some of the claims in the letter as “misinformation” and “inaccurate.” She called for “cool heads in hot times” and expressed fears that the controversy was crowding out conversation about the films.
Among the standout entries in the official competition was We Are All Strangers by director Anthony Chen.
Set in Chen’s native Singapore, the film is a moving family drama which playfully satirizes the yawning social disparities to be found in the city-state’s glittering skyscrapers.
Actress Sandra Hueller, who gained international acclaim for her roles in The Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall, received audience plaudits for her turn as the title character in Rose by director Markus Schleinzer.
The black-and-white drama tells the story of a woman passing herself off as a man in rural 17th-century Germany to escape the constraints of patriarchy.
Actress Juliette Binoche, playing a woman caring for her mother with dementia, also moved cinemagoers in Queen at Sea by director Lance Hammer, who had not made a feature film since 2008.
The film portrays the devastation Alzheimer’s disease inflicts on a patient’s loved ones.
“My husband’s got dementia, so I have had a lot of background,” said actress Anna Calder-Marshall, who plays the ailing mother in the film.
The first major event of the film calendar also provided a platform for Iranian filmmakers to address the deadly crackdown on anti-government protests in their home country.
Director Mahnaz Mohammadi, who has spent time in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, presented Roya, a searing portrayal of conditions in the jail and the traces they leave on prisoners’ psyches.
Director Jafar Panahi, who won the Cannes Palme d’Or for It Was Just An Accident, also spoke from the Berlinale to denounce the Iranian government’s repression of protestors.
“An unbelievable crime has happened. Mass murder has happened. People are not even allowed to mourn their loved ones,” Panahi said. “People do not want violence. They avoid violence. It is the regime that forces violence upon them.”
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