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Such a pandemic has strange consequences: Nine years ago, a chair at the Berlinale was glaringly empty. Iranian director Jafar Panahi should have sat on it as a member of the competition jury. But he was not allowed to leave Iran. The regime of the mullahs did not allow it. So Panahi couldn’t have a voice in the Golden Bear.
In the year Corona 2021, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is now on the jury. He is also not allowed to go to Berlin next week. He faces jail at home. He had to turn in his travel papers years ago. However, Rasoulof can rate the films. He sees her in the home theater in Iran. Before Corona, this regulation would have been unthinkable in a festival that bets on the screen.
The Bear 2021 jury consists of six Bear award winners: Rasoulof won last year with “But there is no evil.” The Israeli Nadav Lapid won 2019 with “Synonymes”, the Romanian Adina Pintilie 2018 with “Touch Me Not”, the Hungarian Ildikó Enyedi 2017 with “Body and Soul”, the Italian Gianfranco Rosi 2016 with “Seefeuer” and the Bosnian Jasmila Žbanic 2006 with “Esma’s Secret – Grbavica”.
Five jurors in a cinema
These five jurors will go to a cinema in Berlin from March 1 to 5. You are the only one who will sit there. At the beginning of March there will be no visitors to the film festival with the highest number of visitors in the world to date, with 300,000 tickets sold. The Berlinale sacrificed its biggest pound to the pandemic and, out of necessity, withdrew to the internet.
No red carpet crowds, no stars in the capital, no hard-to-get autographs after a long wait at the hotel entrance – is it still a festival if you remove the excitement, frenetic pace, and sharing?
The jury does its job behind closed doors. The term festival of work, with which the Berlinale adorns itself in February winter, has never been more appropriate. In the end, the six will deliver their verdicts on films that, apart from them, only representatives of the film industry and 1,600 accredited film journalists have been able to see.
Not all movies online
But journalists may not be able to get the big picture either: not all producers will hand over their prized possessions for online presentations. They don’t want to risk being victimized by movie pirates, or they simply want to prevent grumpy critics from proclaiming their views to the world.
In the end, you could win a work that hardly anyone knows about and can’t even be discussed. That would also be part of a stand-alone festival.
In early March, a so-called industry event is planned. On the European Film Market (EFM), films and rights are traded on a purely digital basis. Until now, this movie exchange was an appendage of the program at Potsdamer Platz, but now it has been reduced to its core. At least the film industry should know what is available on the international market. And, conversely, the road to cinema must be paved for filmmakers. Its position is not enviable in an industry that no longer knows where to go with all the withheld films it is hoarding due to closed cinemas.
Films must be shown at the theater in June.
The public in Berlin will only be invited to the cinema from June 9 to 20, if possible. An overall program that has been significantly reduced compared to previous years awaits the audience. About a quarter of the usual 400 films should be screened in a dozen Berlin cinemas and outdoors. The Berlinale Palast on Potsdamer Platz remains unused. The festival wants people to want to go back to the screen. A couple of red carpets are also rolling out.
The award ceremony for the winning films, which were announced in March, will also take place on stage. It doesn’t make things more exciting. However, the new management duo Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek knew of no other solution. The only alternative would have been to cancel the festival entirely and thus become invisible. And that was never an option.
“With the summer special we want to create the festive atmosphere that the public longs for,” says Rissenbeek. They want to break a “movie spear.” “It certainly won’t be the best festival, just the best under the circumstances,” says Chatrian, head of film selection. The Minister of State for Culture, Monika Grütters, has already promised to absorb the fall in income from tickets and sponsorships.
Cannes 2021 is scheduled for June
The Berlinale defiantly fights against all signs of disintegration and claims that it continues to exist. In this rescue attempt, it also runs the risk of abolishing itself in its own name.
For comparison: the Cannes festival last year preferred to give up entirely. They did not want to sacrifice cinema as a shared experience. You have just given the already curated films a quality seal: “Cannes 2020” it was. Cannes should now take place in July 2021, but there are also rumors that it will be postponed until the fall.
Should we talk about a festival simulation at the 71st Berlin International Film Festival? Or maybe you can dream for a moment?
It’s February next year: all of Berlin vibrates with festival fever. No movie enthusiast can stay on the couch of the broadcast. Nobody wants to miss the sensations that will see the light of day at the 72nd International Film Festival. And nowhere else than on the screen that you really missed when it was suddenly no longer accessible.
And because we are already imagining it: it could also be that there is a director named Mohammad Rasoulof among the hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Berlinale.
