At the Berlin Film Festival, the stars walked down the recycled track
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The film screening opened with a film by Arthur Miller’s daughter about the pains of creativity and the possibility of defeating them
On February 16, the 73rd Berlin Film Festival opened. Its eco-friendly red carpet is made from recycled materials. Here, Berlin is not ahead of the rest, since such paths made of green bottle plastic graced the Tokyo Film Festival more than a decade ago.
The comedy melodrama Come to Me Baby directed by Rebecca Miller, the director, writer and daughter of the writer and playwright Arthur Miller, kicked off festival screenings. The main roles in it were played by Anne Hathaway and Peter Dinklage, well known to fans of the Game of Thrones. This is a story about a composer who lost his inspiration. An unexpected meeting in New York will help him overcome his creative crisis. This is not the only film where the characters are involved in creativity. For example, the famous South Korean director Hong Sang-soo in the film “In the Water” will talk about aspiring filmmakers who went to Jeju Island to shoot a film without the slightest idea of what it will be like.
On the eve of the opening, media representatives received a message from the organizers of the Berlinale that Vladimir Zelensky would appear on the screen at the opening ceremony, and Sean Penn, who made a film about him, would personally be present. In February last year, the American actor and director was in Kyiv and filmed a movie about how a comedian became president of the country. However, new circumstances changed plans, and Penn, together with Aaron Kaufman, began to record what was happening in Ukraine. During one of his visits to Zelensky, Sean gave him an Oscar statuette. Now at the Berlinale they will see his documentary Superpower.
The jury of the main competition was headed by 32-year-old American actress and director Kristen Stewart (Twilight, Panic Room, Spencer), which caused some discontent, since it is too early for her to judge films at a festival of this level. But the choice has been made, and Kristen Stewart has become one of the few US representatives at the Berlinale. There is no big Hollywood cinema at the festival as a class, which is also associated with the proximity of the Oscars. 18 paintings are presented in the main competition. This is the French “Grand Chariot” by Philippe Garrel, the German “Red Sky” by Christian Petzold, where one of the characters is again a writer. In “Journey to the Desert” by the classic of German cinema Margarethe von Trotta, we will talk about the Austrian writer and feminist Ingeborg Bachmann and the Swiss playwright Max Frisch. In the Italian “Disco Boy” by Giaccomo Abruzzese, the famous German actor Franz Rogowski played the Belarusian Alexei, who ended up in the French Foreign Legion. The competition features two animated films – the Japanese “Suzume Closes the Doors” by Makoto Shinkai, where one of the characters knows something about how to avoid an earthquake, and the Chinese “Art College 1994” by Liu Jian about art students in the 90s. Five films of the competition represent Germany, six are directed by women.
The program Encounter (“Meetings”), aimed at “new voices”, includes the only Russian film “Cage looking for a bird”, filmed in Chechen by Alexander Sokurov’s student Malika Musaeva. There was some confusion with the name, caused by the difficulties of translation: either “The bird is looking for a cage”, or “The cage is looking for a bird”. And this is a huge difference. Malika now lives in Hamburg, graduated from a media school there, and filmed in a Chechen village on the border of Chechnya and Ingushetia – about women’s destinies. One heroine cannot get a divorce, the other only has to get married. Like many other women, they live in a cage.
There are no more Russian films in the official program of the festival. On the other hand, the film market, which has returned offline after two years of online existence, has many representatives of the Russian film industry accredited. There, in particular, a new film by Yuri Bykov “The Boss” will be presented there, again with Artem Bystrov in the title role, who received an award for best male role in Locarno for his work in “The Fool”.
The Russian trace is also present in the film “Golda. Judgment Day” by Israeli director Guy Nattiv from the out-of-competition program. Helen Mirren, who has Russian roots, played the Israeli Prime Minister and a native of the Russian Empire, Golda Meir. It is impossible to recognize the actress – she has changed so much. In Berlin, as always, an incredible number of films, there is even a festival within the festival, where children’s and teen films are shown. This year’s focus is on paintings from Ukraine and Iran, presented in various programs.
Newspaper headline:
Berlinale: recycling underfoot
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