FW: We can intensify the cinema experience of festival visitors. For this reason, we often invite filmmakers whose work festival audiences may have seen and who they have briefly witnessed in public discussions on stage. At Talents, the possibility then exists to delve deeper into the production process or one particular interpretation of cinema. We have arranged with Wes Anderson for his storyboard artist Jay Clarke to come to us. On Grand Budapest Hotel and this year’s wonderful Berlinale opening film, Isle of Dogs, Clarke and Anderson started working together in the very early stages of the production – where ideas are born. Jay Clarke is going to come and draw in a fantastic event. It’s important to us that our guests don’t just talk but also act and interact on a practical level.
CT: From the beginning it was a USP of Berlinale Talents that we don’t just focus on directing, producing, acting and screenwriting but on all the disciplines – right up to film criticism. The public programme reflects this tradition very well, for example, in a presentation on the lighting design in Blade Runner 2049 and in an acting workshop with Josephine Decker which is open to everyone.
“I’ve been called a woman cameraman.”
Equal rights in the film industry have been brought starkly into the public consciousness with the #MeToo debate. This year you have 128 women and 122 men on board. Is this gender equality a concern for you?
CT: From the start, Berlinale Talents has been a 50-50 event. That’s indeed an objective for us and has become a matter of course. There is still a lot to do, but we are mindful of also tackling the embedded structures of film production – especially on the technical side. Because if it’s all about equality in the exchange between different human beings, then it affects the entire cast and crew. We’re placing the topic at the heart of this year’s programme with the legendary camerawomen Nancy Schreiber and Agnès Godard. Our jumping off point with Nancy was an interview in which she said: “I’ve been called a woman cameraman.” Although, fortunately, there are more and more successful camerawomen, the simple word “camerawoman” or the neutral “cinematographer” are less established even in the Google search function. We mainly want to speak to Nancy and Agnès about their great camerawork, but the public panel in HAU1 is also welcome to further the debate on women in the so-called “technical crafts”. We’re hoping for the audience to actively take part in an animated discussion.