57th Berlin International Film Festival

Record interest in a Berlinale of the stars

Never before was interest in the Berlinale as great as this year, in terms of both professional visitors and the general public: More than 19,000 accredited professionals from 127 countries, including 4,000 journalists came to the festival. Over ten days, the Berlinale saw about 430,000 cinema visits, and a record 220,000 tickets were sold to the general. The newly added Cubix cinemas on Alexanderplatz were very well received. Besides the "regular sections" Competition, Panorama, Forum, Generation and Perspektive Deutsches Kino, events in the special Magnum in Motion series, the newly positioned Short Film Competition, as well as the Eat, Drink, See Movies - Culinary Cinema events were almost completely booked out.

An extra special treat came once again in the form of the Retrospective programme, which this year presented images of the “New Woman” in the era of silent film. A special pleasure for those with a taste for the unexpected were provided by the carefully restored colour versions of Hamlet (1920/21) with Asta Nielsen and Giovanni Pastrone’s historical epic Cabiria as well as the complete version of Rainer-Werner Fassbinder’s late work Berlin Alexanderplatz, which was shown as a Remastered Version in the Berlinale Special.

The Homage was dedicated to the American director Arthur Penn, who added a special touch to the Berlinale as tireless festivalgoer and gregarious guest of honour.

Side-by-side festival and market structure continues to grow dynamically

The side-by-side structure of the festival and film market continued to gain prestige and developed a new dynamic this year. The European Film Market (EFM) continued to grow qualitatively and quantitatively. In the two locations – the Martin-Gropius-Bau and the EFM Business Offices – 259 companies from the film industry from 46 countries presented themselves at 115 market stalls. In more than 1,100 screenings, 727 films were presented. The press and professional visitors unanimously concurred that the EFM has developed into a crucial date on the international business calendar. Reactions to the business activity and attractiveness of this year’s EFM couldn’t have been more enthusiastic.

Panorama and Forum offered diversity at a high level

With their traditionally somewhat heterogeneous profile, the Panorama and Forum were able to satisfy their demanding and passionate audiences. With Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in Paris, Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim and Sarah Polley’s Away from her, several hits were screened in the Panorama, and the section enjoyed the presence of plenty of stars: crossing the Red Carpet into the Zoo-Palast were Daniel Brühl, Danny Glover, Antonio Banderas, Steve Buscemi as well as Karl Lagerfeld and John Waters, to whom a documentary portrait was dedicated. A critic’s favourite was Pascale Ferran’s Lady Chatterley. Insider tips in the section included the political documentary Strange Culture, Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Teeth as well as the Korean Dasepo Naughty Girls, which was credited in the New York Times alongside Park Chan-wook’s Competition film I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK, for having revived the genre of the "crazy movie".

The Forum lived up to its reputation of taking a differentiated view of international film and presented various developments coming out of Asia, in particular. Highlights aslo included the re-screening of Charles’ Burnett’s 1977 social drama Killer of Sheep, Guy Maddin’s eccentric silent film Brand Upon the Brain!, which was presented as a opera spectacle, as well as two noteworthy works by young German directors: Ann-Kristin Reyels’ Hounds and Maria Speth’s Madonnas.

German films blossom in the warmth of the Berlin February sun

Nobody doubts anymore that the Berlinale has fostered the revival of German films over the last few years. Rarely has international awareness of German film been as high as it was this year. Besides the noticeable presence of German actors in international productions - Devid Striesow, Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck, Julia Jentsch, Jasmin Tabatabai, André Hennicke – this Berlinale was appreciated as a showcase year for the "Berlin School": Maria Speth, Thomas Arslan, Angela Schanelec presented their latest films and Christian Petzold, according to the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung", managed the “great leap” with his film Yella.