UOf all the dreary places in Berlin's February gray, Potsdamer Platz is one of the dreariest. And as if the district wanted to finally put an end to this area, which has never been more than a simulation of urbanity since the redevelopment, the Alte Potsdamer Straße, which leads to the Berlinale Palace, has now been converted into a cute pedestrian zone. If you don't have the weather of Cannes, the architecture of Venice and only one cinema in a musical theatre, you'll be happy to miss out on other attractions.
In any case, the Berlinale is a festival that doesn't have an easy time maintaining its importance. Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian were unlucky from the start of their term in office. In 2020, the first time, the shadow of the attack in Hanau fell on the festival, then came the pandemic and budget cuts, now there was trouble over two AfD MPs who were invited to the opening gala and then disinvited again.
The fact that Chatrian ensured a greater profile in terms of content than his predecessor did him little good. And when the State Minister for Culture only gave him the option of resigning by opting for the director model, the protests from more than 400 directors from all over the world didn't help.
A 14 hour film
Whether the Rissenbeek/Chatrian division of labor doesn't work, whether Chatrian didn't get involved enough with the complicated Berlin environment, as has been rumored again and again, is now irrelevant. This Berlinale will be Chatrian's last as artistic director. How people will remember his short term in office compared to his predecessors De Hadeln and Kosslick cannot be said without a time gap.
Chatrian says goodbye poetically: “Images like trees that defy the storm” are what the films are intended to show. There are 236 including the short film programs this year; in 2023 there were 287, but the sheer quantity did not guarantee higher quality in previous years either. The number of world premieres in the competition is correct: 19 out of 20 films.
Andreas Dresen is there again from Germany with “In Love, Your Hilde”, the story of the resistance fighter Hilde Coppi in Berlin in 1942. Matthias Glasner is also an old friend in the competition, he is showing “Die” with Corinna Harfouch and Lars Eidinger.
However, the really big names are missing from the program. Bruno Dumont and Olivier Assayas, Abderrahmane Sissako and Hong Sang-soo are lighthouses in the world of cineastes. The celebrity will be brought into the house again in 2024 with the awarding of the Honorary Bear: Martin Scorsese will be arriving.
What to expect in the other sections? Chatrian's invention, the “Encounters” series, relies on an advanced artistic offering. When it comes to “Berlinale Special” and “Berlinale Special Gala”, nobody understands to this day what criteria qualify a film for these sections. In any case, one film is very special: “exergue – on documenta 14” by Dimitris Athiridis, which is about Documenta 2017 in a record-breaking 14 hours.
A difficult construction site
You can look forward to “The Other Cinema” in the retrospective: German films beyond the canon, from Thomas Brasch to Roland Klick and Christoph Schlingensief, there is a lot that you would like to see again without having to get nostalgic. And it is also very pleasing to finally be able to see a documentary by Romuald Karmakar again in the International Forum section: “The Invisible Zoo”.
This year, the Forum is saying goodbye to its Arsenal cinema in the Sony Center, from which the film museum, film school and cinema library will also have to move into an uncertain future. This means that practically everything that was supposed to make Potsdamer Platz a center of the film has disappeared. A great signal!
It is unclear what will happen when the rental agreement for the musical theater expires in 2025 and whether the Berlinale will choose to extend it. The festival also remains a difficult construction site for the new director Tricia Tuttle. She comes from London with a good reputation. But that alone won't help her in Berlin.
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