Berlinale Notes

Gathers personal, sketched and brief observations and reflections.

Note #4: On Free Speech, Brave Spaces and Film

noted by Tricia Tuttle

We are a film festival. But Berlinale is also a community of people coming together with a desire to create an inclusive, open environment around cinema.

While we must not take these things for granted - neither a healthy future for independent cinema, nor the kinds of cultural environments we want to maintain - there is reason to be hopeful about both. We value and protect free speech but as we have seen in online spaces all over the world, an advocacy for free speech alone is not enough. We have to bring kindness, care about facts and the desire not only to speak but also a hope that people might hear us.

Above all, perhaps, we need to come with a desire to understand. Cinema itself, certainly the kind of cinema the Berlinale loves and champions, asks for this. With debate increasingly fractured and fractious, we know we will fall short of some people’s expectations. But with just over a week to go until the 75th Berlinale, we reaffirm our determination to see this space thrive as the inclusive environment that filmmakers, the film industry, and audiences deserve.

In the last year, the Berlinale has been accused of many things, many contradictory things, which cannot all be true at the same time. On my 10th day in this role, in April last year, I was called to speak before the all-party Culture and Media Committee of the German Bundestag to answer questions about accusations of antisemitism at the last Berlinale. I inherited a challenging situation and spent a lot of time trying to understand the dynamics at play, resisting both my own temptation and external pressures to oversimplify.

I read my comments to the Bundestag Committee from that early day again recently: “As an international festival, it is really important that we continue to represent and be open and welcoming to everyone in the world...we are trying to maintain spaces where Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers can speak in a way that they can feel safe. What never helps is when the dialogue becomes escalated or there are bad faith misrepresentations. I believe genuinely this is where we create danger for filmmakers, so the most important thing to me is that we as leaders need to de-escalate, continue to raise awareness and learn from dialogue.”

Care with language will protect our filmmakers and foster our ability to talk to and listen to each other. While I spoke about Israel and Palestine in the context of that day, these sentiments hold true for all of our filmmakers and guests from around the world. Often against great odds – and sometimes in opposition and danger – they make films that document and reflect on the ways so many people struggle: with perilous economic circumstances, with war, the rise in nationalism and authoritarianism, with rising bigotry and misogyny, healthcare and housing crises, effects of the climate emergency and political and legal disenfranchisement. That our filmmakers tackle these issues with such sharpness, humanity and extraordinary creative and storytelling skill regularly humbles us.

On Speaking

When the Berlinale becomes the story, we take airtime from films and filmmakers. It often feels hard enough to make space for discussion of cinema in a conflict hungry world. But sometimes we must speak. And I do so now in the hope that the films and filmmakers of the 75th Berlinale can have the floor from 13-23rd February. Many beautiful films deserve this space.

We affirm again our commitment to free speech while continuing to stand against hate speech and discrimination, as we've always done. We protect the right for filmmakers to speak through their work, or speak about the impulses that underpin their work. We also believe that filmmakers have a right to use their platforms to speak about issues they are passionate about, or concerned about. This is free speech. Of course, people may disagree with what is said, and they may voice their opposition to these views. This is also freedom of expression.

There have been many misrepresentations, or misunderstandings, or more simply, worries on these issues around the Berlinale. We are not blind to the ways platforms in Germany, and in the world, have felt like hostile spaces for people to express solidarity with Palestine. We also see that there has been a hostility towards Israel in cultural environments which has created a disinclination to show empathy. Rising Islamophobia and rising antisemitism in Germany and around the world alarm us. We also care about all of our filmmakers and film communities who have been harmed by discourse around the festival. We also know that silence and not feeling seen can hurt people too.

We are publishing FAQs today, which address some things that are important to us but also misconceptions. For instance, it is not true that we communicated that delegates cannot wear clothes or badges that express sympathy with Palestine. Misinformation is hard to correct when people continue to share and re-share it.

Since I took over in April, I have seen my team, our staff and freelancers living in a vortex of competing tensions. I worry how this immense, sometimes impossible pressure from many sides effects so many very thoughtful and committed colleagues. We are not politicians. We are people who want to run an important, fair, welcoming film festival. We do not want to fail people we care about. Our team cannot stand alone, and we will lose if we try to. We need our community and we are so grateful to all of the filmmakers, audiences and industry who join us. To those who are not with us this year, we look forward to welcoming you back.

We know you do not all speak with one voice, nor does our staff, or our partners, but most of us come together with a hope we might learn from each other and a belief that filmmakers can help us see and imagine a better world. We also come together around shared love of cinema as an art form and not only a deliverer of messages.

We look forward to working with you to see the Berlinale continue to thrive for our communities.

See our FAQs

Note #3: Thank You, Tilda! The Berlinale Team is Looking Forward to Tilda Swinton

noted by Florian Weghorn

Tilda Swinton with fans on the Red Carpet for Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014

As the programme grows, so does our excitement about the many people who will join us for the 75th anniversary edition in February. The very first Berlinale, back in 1951, laid the foundation for something that still defines what a public film festival like ours embodies: an enduring love of cinema, shared in the greatest possible numbers with the people behind the camera and in front of the screens alike. For the 75th anniversary edition, we’re putting this back at the heart of all our venues (and at the new HUB75!) and are looking forward to writing the next chapter in a success story shared with our guests and audiences. Last week we announced the winner of our Honorary Golden Bear, and few personalities are as closely associated with the Berlinale and as admired by the Berliners as Tilda Swinton. She once described herself as a “Baby of the Berlinale”, and it is true: her first film with her as an actor was screened here in 1986, before she returned as a member of the International Jury in 1988 and became its celebrated president in 2009. And in between, right up to the present day: great films, films, films. Almost three decades of unforgettable moments: the official ones on the Red Carpets for Wes Anderson’s festival openers, the personal one in memory of David Bowie, and the many occasions of shared passion with the audience (unforgettable for me, Tilda’s spontaneous visit to the opening of Generation in 2010). “I’ve experienced this festival in pretty much every capacity,” she said in an interview, “I haven’t cleaned up here yet, but I’ll probably do that next year.” Don’t worry, we’ll make sure the carpet is vacuumed. Thank you, Tilda, from all the team!

Note #2: New Festival Venues at Potsdamer Platz

noted by Tricia Tuttle

The Berlinale Palast

This week, we’ve shared some plans for revamping our home at Potsdamer Platz in 2025, with two new festival venues close to the Berlinale Palast. The first of these is a new cinema at the Stage Bluemax Theater at Marlene-Dietrich-Platz. Once our (excellent) technical team adapts this into a screening space, it will seat 500 people and be the home of our first feature competition, Perspectives, as well as hosting other section premieres. Berlinale HUB75 will be our pop-up audience and industry space at Marlene-Dietrich-Platz. A place for celebrating our 75th edition with all of our audiences – here we will host free morning talks for the public on themes emerging out of the programme, and offer an industry and filmmaker hub in the afternoons and evenings. It’s a much needed space for encounters around the heart of the festival.

These new plans emerge as we respond to the dramatic reduction of cinema space at the Potsdamer Platz in the last few years and they are a key part of our development for the future. But they also come in times of particular sadness and great crisis for so many colleagues in arts and culture all over the city. Art, film, music, theatre, performance and other cultural works make Berlin a destination for travellers and tourists from all over the world. They make Berlin one of the great cities to live in. Culture creates many thousands of jobs, and enriches lives – including for many of our team members, who not only work on the Berlinale, but also very often in other culture organisations throughout the year.

As the Berlinale, we have longstanding connections and deep roots in this diverse and vibrant city culture in Berlin. We deliver the Festival alongside collaborators, including HAU Hebbel am Ufer, SINEMA TRANSTOPIA and many other cultural spaces and cinemas effected by budget cuts. We strongly hope solutions can be found to keep these very special venues open and thriving. Solidarity and strength to all the artists and creatives who make this city so alive.

November 29, 2024

Note #1: A Magical Arrival

noted by Tricia Tuttle

It’s hard to believe I’ve been in my post as Festival Director for the better part of a year since joining the Berlinale since April 1. I was promised a friendly city, and it’s so true; many people have gone out of their way to make me feel welcomed. People from the film industry, from museums and galleries, writers, critics, opera singers, curators, musicians. I have landed in a magical place. Eight months since I moved to Berlin also means that our festival exhilaratingly rushes towards us. We will have much news to share about the programme over the next eight weeks.

The first of our big announcements came recently: Todd Haynes will lead the International Jury to select the next Golden Bear winner. Few directors have such an impressive body of work, and the reaction to our announcement showed how admired he is. It’s particularly special for me; I wrote my Masters’ thesis on his debut film Poison many years ago, and have loved his cinematic explorations of gender, performance and identity ever since.

November 28, 2024