Berlin International Film Festival

Three monetary prizes were awarded to selected narrative film projects at the 2017 Berlinale Co-Production Market which runs February 12 to 15. The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award, with an endowment of 20,000 euros, was awarded to The Wife of the Pilot (director: Anne Zohra Berrached), which Razor Film Produktion from Germany presented here. The prize money is intended as a development grant from the European film fund Eurimages. The three members of this year’s jury were renowned industry professionals Pablo Pérez de Lema (Spain), Leontine Petit (The Netherlands) and Manfred Schmidt (Germany). Two additional prestige prizes were also awarded. The VFF – Verwertungsgesellschaft der Film und Fernsehproduzenten from Munich awarded its VFF Talent Highlight Award, with an endowment of 10,000 euros, to the project The Bus to Amerika, presented at the market by producer Nefes Polat from Turkey and director Derya Durmaz. Since 2004, the VFF has each year honored a promising project by up-and-coming filmmakers from the “Talent Project Market”, organized by the Berlinale Co-Production Market in cooperation with Berlinale Talents. Nominated for the VFF Talent Highlight Award this year in addition to Nefes Polat were Cuban producer Maria Carla del Rio, with her project Shock Labor, and producer Jeremy Chua from Singapore, with Tomorrow is a Long Time. Each project received a recognition of 1,000 euros as well as the opportunity to pitch their projects to participants of the Berlinale Co-Production Market. This year, the renowned ARTE International Prize, which has been presented since 2011, was awarded to the project Lost Country by Serbian director Vladimir Perišić, which is represented by KinoElektron (France), MPM Film (France) and Trilema Films (Serbia). ARTE bestows the 6,000 euro prize on an artistically outstanding project drawn from the entire Berlinale Co-Production Market. The 14th Berlinale Co-Production Market, which runs until February 15, is a place where the producers of the 36 selected narrative film projects can also meet with potential co-producers and funding partners. Over the four days, some 600 participants take a total of more than 1,200 individual meetings. More than 240 films that came to the market looking for partners have since become completed films, and seven of those are screening this year alone in the film festival programme.

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[caption id="attachment_19107" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Studies on the Ecology of Drama[/caption] The selection process for the 12th Forum Expanded of the Berlin International Film Festival is currently being finalized. This year’s theme is “The Stars Down to Earth”. The search for ways to enable art to deal with an increasingly intangible reality forms an essential similarity between the selected works. Bringing one’s gaze back down to earth now seems more necessary than ever before. Yet how can one use film to take hold of something real when that very concept is ever harder to grasp? The films and installations in the programme approach this question by attempting to both look and listen as closely as possible. In the video installation Twelve, for example, Jeamin Cha examines the pragmatic process underpinning the annual secret wage negotiations held between Korean employer and employee associations. Berlin artist Sandra Schäfer’s video installation Constructed Futures: Haret Hreik investigates city planning and redevelopment in Beirut and the political and religious ideologies they contain. In her film Studies on the Ecology of Drama, Eija-Liisa Ahtila explores ways of finding film images that move beyond cinematographic anthropocentrism by shifting her gaze away from people and onto their environment. The Karrabing Film Collective from Australia, whose work Wutharr, Saltwater Dreams is being presented in the group exhibition, shows three different variants of one and the same story, demonstrating how different approaches to a problem don’t just bring forth contradictory solutions but also mutually complimentary ones. For his part, Joe Namy does away with pictorial representation almost entirely. His installation Purple, Bodies in Translation – Part II of “A Yellow Memory from the Yellow Age” merely shows a purple-colour surface, while the soundtrack explores the question of which details are lost in translation and what additional elements and contradictions are created by the differences between subtitles and image. The central event location is once again the Akademie der Künste at Hanseatenweg. A group exhibition of works by 14 artists takes place here together with screenings of numerous films. The artists already invited include Haig Aivazian, James Benning, Duncan Campbell, Anja Dornieden and Juan Gonzales, Noam Enbar, Mohamed A. Gawad and Lina Attalah, Eva Heldmann, Laura Horelli, Oliver Hussain, Ken Jacobs, Mahmoud Lotfy, Bernd Lützeler, Peter Miller, Rawane Nassif, Tomonari Nishikawa, Marouan Omara and Islam Kamal, Lukasz Ronduda, Ginan Seidl, Philip Scheffner, Merle Kröger and Izadora Nistor, Fern Silva, and Mohanad Yaqubi. Forum Expanded will also be presenting different film archives and archive projects as part of a symposium to be held at the Kuppelhalle at the silent green Kulturquartier in Wedding, including ones from Nigeria, Indonesia, and the Palestinian Territories. SAVVY Contemporary are presenting an installation by Israeli filmmaker and artist Amos Gitai in their own exhibition space at the same location. The full list of participating artists will be announced in mid-January.  

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[caption id="attachment_19102" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Red Dog: True Blue[/caption] The first 15 feature films have already been selected for the 40th edition of Generation at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival, in the two competitions Kplus and 14plus.  Exhibiting an impressive range of cinematic approaches, these productions tell the stories of young people on inner and outer journeys and capture a sense of longing for new and altered horizons. The complete program for Generation will be made public in mid-January. Michael Winterbottom is slated to open the program of Generation 14plus in the newly renovated Haus der Kulturen der Welt with a special screening of his vibrant music documentary On the Road. Shot in the characteristic hybrid style that has become the English director’s trademark, his newest outing follows the members of the band Wolf Alice on tour as they travel back and forth across their native Great Britain, where they have caused quite a stir in recent years. The film intimately portrays life on the road, in all its ecstasy and exhaustion. The connection between the musicians and their fans is palpable and there is a fine interplay between watching and listening amongst concert and film audiences. Generation 14plus Almost Heaven United Kingdom By Carol Salter World premiere Far from home, 17-year-old Ying Ling practices for her examination to become a mortician at one of China’s largest funeral homes. In addition to frequent qualms and farewell ceremonies, the everyday routine of this unusual occupation also serves up both humorous and life affirming moments. Carol Salter’s debut outing is an empathetic documentary portrait touching on fears, friendship and coming of age amidst ghosts and the dearly departed. Butterfly Kisses United Kingdom By Rafael Kapelinski World premiere Jake and his friends pass their time hanging out in the courtyards of their high-rise development or in pool halls, talking about girls, watching pornos and getting drunk. Jake is burdened by a dark secret that distances him more and more from the others and drives him into dangerous isolation. Rafael Kapelinski stages his debut film in contrasting black and white, moving in respectful proximity to his characters, brought to life vividly here by an ensemble cast of new discoveries and young talents (including Thomas Turgoose – This Is England, Generation 2007). Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n’ont fait que se creuser un tombeau (Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves) Canada By Mathieu Denis, Simon Lavoie European premiere With epic scope and stunning polymorphism, the film follows a group of young people in Québec who resolve to form a revolutionary cell together in the aftermath of student protests. This unflinching work from Mathieu Denis (Corbo, Generation 2015) and Simon Lavoie employs its protagonists to play through what it might mean to instigate a revolution and devote one’s life to a cause in today’s world. Emo the Musical Australia By Neil Triffett International premiere The forbidden high school love between Ethan, the shy Emo kid with suicidal tendencies, and chipper Christian activist Trinity previously delighted Generation audiences as a short film in 2014. Director Neil Triffett is back with his heartbreakingly funny musical grotesque, now in feature-film length, and chock full of even more colourful characters to light up the big screen. Mulher do pai (A Woman and the Father) Brazil / Uruguay By Cristiane Oliveira International premiere After the death of her grandmother, 16-year-old Nalu is left to care for her father alone. Any hope of leaving her dismal village now seems to have receded far off into the distance. Cristiane Oliveira’s coming-of-age drama, a work of slowly paced cinema characterised by respectful intimacy and subtle physicality, paints the complex portrait of a relationship between an adolescent daughter and her blind father. My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea USA By Dash Shaw European premiere He’s not exactly popular, he’s got friend problems, he wants to make it big with the school paper and he goes by the name of his inventor, Dash. In the school basement, he discovers a secret that rocks the very foundations of his world. Graphic novelist Shaw hopes that his film will reach 15-year-old nerds who are just as crazy about drawings and paintings as he himself was at their age. This work of animation virtually spilling over with ingenuity (and featuring the voice-over talents of Jason Schwartzman, Maya Rudolph, Lena Dunham and Susan Sarandon) is sure to delight young viewers outside of this particular demographic as well. Krolewicz Olch (The Erlprince) Poland By Kuba Czekaj European premiere The action in The Erlprince builds and surges as dramatically as the ballad by Goethe from which it borrows its title. The boundaries between reality, desire and appearance are blurred in this futuristically tinged film about an extraordinarily gifted young man and his ambitious and wondrous mother. Expressed in a form as unconventional as the characters it portrays, the film oscillates between the poles of both science and nature and love and violence. Weirdos Canada By Bruce McDonald European premiere Just after the end of the Vietnam War and in the midst of the American bicentennial celebrations of 1976, runaway Kit and his girlfriend Alice hitchhike their way along the east coast of Canada. Bruce McDonald (The Tracey Fragments, Panorama 2007) has managed to create a coming-of-age film that shines equally as a road movie, one driven by a fantastic soundtrack composed of deep cuts from the era in question. A rebellious trip in black and white, in which all sense of certainty gets left by the wayside. Generation Kplus As duas Irenes (Two Irenes) Brazil By Fabio Meira World premiere In the shimmering heat of Brazil, 13-year-old Irene discovers a dark secret her father’s been hiding: he has another family and even another daughter with the same name. Irene embarks on a risky game that could blow up in her face at any moment. The languid summer atmosphere of Fabio Meira’s feature film debut can’t hide the fact that something is simmering right under the surface. Die Häschenschule – Jagd nach dem Goldenen Ei (Rabbit School – Guardians of the Golden Egg) Germany By Ute von Münchow-Pohl World premiere Scrappy city rabbit Max finds shelter in a hidden Easter bunny school after a misadventure with a model plane leaves him stranded far beyond the city limits. Here he encounters the keepers of the legendary Golden Egg, itself the coveted prize of scheming foxes. After an initial bout with boredom, the secret techniques of the Easter bunnies finally arouse Max’s curiosity. This lovingly drawn German animation film, based on the 1924 classic, is a pure delight buoyed by imagination and brisk pacing and graced with the voices of Senta Berger, Friedrich von Thun, Jule Böwe and Noah Levi. Primero enero (January) Argentina By Darío Mascambroni European premiere Primero enero is the directorial debut of Argentinian filmmaker Darío Mascambroni. 11-year-old Valentino’s life goes off the rails when his parents get divorced, challenging him to see the world from a different angle. In a tender and moving father-son story, the director takes his protagonists and his viewers out to the countryside, into a world of heightened sensitivity. Red Dog: True Blue Australia By Kriv Stenders European premiere Australian director Stenders delighted Generation audiences in 2011 with a legendary story about a very special dog. Now, at the centre of this sequel – which is also a prequel- the red canine is joined by 11-year-old Mick, who treasures his bond with his four-legged friend above all else. Destiny has brought the duo together on a farm in the Australian outback, where the two partake in mystical adventures and Mick encounters his first true love. With great humour and sensitivity, the film is a tale of growing up in a time of transformation. Richard the Stork Germany / Belgium / Luxemburg / Norway By Toby Genkel, Reza Memari World premiere Even though everybody else thinks he’s a sparrow – Richard himself holds tight to the conviction that he is in fact a stork. In this fast-paced adventure, Toby Genkel and Reza Memari tell the story of a bird who sets off self-confidently on a winter trip to Africa in a literal rite of passage that simultaneously serves as an empathetic tale about otherness and self-discovery. This German-international co-production provides spellbinding entertainment with its fantastic and fanciful fable showcasing top-shelf animation. Tesoros Mexico By María Novaro World premiere Siblings Dylan and Andrea set off with their new friends on a marvellous journey of discovery in search of long lost pirate loot. In refreshingly sunny images, María Novaro gets up close to her characters to tell a story of children confidently indulging their lust for life and curiosity. In a commune on Mexico’s Pacific coast, they are given space to go their own ways and together find something much more valuable than buried treasure. Shi Tou (Stonehead) People’s Republic of China By Xiang Zhao World premiere 10-year-old Shi Tou, the son of a migrant labourer, grows up alone with his grandmother. It’s so hard to tell right from wrong! Sharing a reward with a classmate or waiting until his father returns, obeying his teacher of protecting his friend – which one should he choose? With documental authenticity, Xiang Zhao paints a portrait of life in rural China and a society in which an entire generation has too often been left to grow up in the absence of their parents.

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