Thanks to the support of the German Federal Foreign Office, for the first time the 2017 Berlinale will provide a platform for innovative projects and ideas from the African film industry. The “Berlinale Africa Hub” is an initiative of the European Film Market (EFM) in cooperation with the World Cinema Fund (and the special programme it created in 2016, WCF Africa, which promotes films from Sub-Saharan Africa with the support of the German Federal Foreign Office), with Berlinale Talents (and its sister programme Talents Durban, which supports talented African filmmakers throughout the year), and with the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

As Festival Director Dieter Kosslick says, “The Berlinale has long-standing relationships with numerous African filmmakers, and has fostered the film industry in Africa in a variety of ways. Now, due to the support of the German Federal Foreign Office, with the ‘Berlinale Africa Hub’ we can substantially intensify that commitment. The new platform at the European Film Market will bring the next generation of African filmmakers to Berlin and offer an international forum for current technology, ideas, and developments in the African film industry”.

EFM Director Matthijs Wouter Knol says, “Apart from functioning as a place for African filmmakers to meet up with the international film industry, the ‘Berlinale Africa Hub’ is focused first and foremost on changes in the industry triggered by innovations and technology. Numerous talented African filmmakers and creatives are increasingly using the newest technology to create their content, giving African audiences access to original African content”.

The “Berlinale Africa Hub” is a communication and networking platform for the African film industry and all EFM participants who want to know more about new distribution and marketing models, and virtual reality and 360° projects by African filmmakers and producers, about successful start-ups that are bringing audio-visual content to the African market, and about African VOD and SVOD platforms that have emerged in the last few years.

As part of the Hub, there will be networking events, featuring discussions of the most important issues in sales, distribution, marketing, project packaging, co-production, subsidies, and talent development in the African industry.

Among the participants and partners of the “Berlinale Africa Hub” are companies like the non-profit organization Electric South from Cape Town, the pan-African online platform Mokolo, Rushlake Media from Cologne, and the Goethe Institute.

Electric South provides funding, mentoring, training, and start-up help for digital storytelling - for African audio-visual projects of any kind, from long or short films to documentaries, interactive productions, virtual reality, or mobile content.

The pan-African online platform Mokolo, headquartered in Lagos, is directed both at audiences and at professionals in the AV and IT industries. It offers distribution, information, and networking possibilities.

Cologne’s Rushlake Media (RLM) is a film sales and distribution company focused on digital content and the African market. RLM supports producers, rights holders and institutions with successful marketing strategies in the changing film distribution landscape.

The Goethe Institute is the co-producer of Electric South’s virtual reality initiative New Dimensions, and was instrumental in launching the Mokolo web portal in 2011.

The “Berlinale Africa Hub” will be headquartered in Gropius Park, the new compound that surrounds the historical Martin Gropius Bau, the main venue for the EFM.

With its focus on “Courage: Against All Odds”, the 15th edition of Berlinale Talents takes on the significance of everyday bravery and fearlessness for today’s film professionals. 250 exceptional Talents and over 100 international experts and mentors will be invited to the six-day programme, held once again at the three venues of HAU Hebbel am Ufer from February 11 to 16, 2017.

Talents and experts will jointly explore moments of courage in the filmmaking process, from making daring choices at personal risk to pushing artistic, political or financial boundaries and venturing into unknown narrative worlds.

“Every time a filmmaker acts with courage, their step takes the true measure of a challenge. For the anniversary edition, Berlinale Talents will focus on these crucial points while celebrating a new generation busy making film with unshakeable optimism and against all odds,” programme manager Florian Weghorn explains the theme.

The Berlinale Talents 2017 key visual showcases quotes that will sound familiar to many filmmakers from their day-to-day lives. With a little wink, the poster series calls on Talents, guests and Berliners to find the courage to interact with these messages during the festival.

New structures for more interaction

With the level of Talent experience continuously on the rise, Berlinale Talents has redesigned integral parts of the programme to strengthen the networking effects. Four major slots traditionally reserved for master classes have been replaced by a new series of interactive sessions and smaller encounters to better deepen the Talents’ knowledge and harness their expertise.

Berlinale Talents is also intensifying its ties with the European Film Market and the other industry activities of the festival. The re-branded “Talents Market Studio” offers emerging sales and distribution professionals a better framework to discuss unconventional and collective marketing strategies and to test them directly on location at the “Talents Market Hub” of the EFM.

Selection process still ongoing: 2,711 applications from 127 countries

2,711 emerging and already-established film professionals from 127 countries have applied for the 2017 edition and their applications are currently under review by an international selection committee. Berlinale Talents invites 250 Talents from the fields of directing, producing, acting, screenwriting, cinematography, editing, production design, film criticism, world sales, distribution, sound design and score composing.

More information at: www.berlinale-talents.de

Under the new umbrella “EFM Horizon presented by Audi”, the European Film Market (EFM) will be offering a variety of initiatives in 2017 focusing on the film industry of the future, made possible with the support of Audi.

“EFM Horizon” provides opportunities for discovering the newest relevant technological developments and forward-looking trends and for taking advantage of networks in sectors bordering on those of the audio-visual industry.

“The Berlinale is an incubator for creativity and new trends. The openness and curiosity Audi has demonstrated in recognising our festival as a laboratory for thematic initiatives open up new possibilities for us,” commented Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick. “We are very happy to be able to continue our close collaboration with Audi in the future. Our partnership has just been extended until 2019 and with the addition of the new platform ‘EFM Horizon’ this co-operation will be expanded.”

For its inaugural edition in 2017, “EFM Horizon” will begin by providing a platform for the events “Propellor Speednic”, “EFM Startups”, “VR NOW Con Business Mixer”, “Game <3 Cinema” and “The Next Level of Cinema”.

“As the market of one of the largest public festivals in the world, the EFM is once again expanding its portfolio. From now on, our motto ‘It all starts here’ will take on additional meaning,” according to EFM director Matthijs Wouter Knol. “The audio-visual sector is consistently characterised by radical transformations. New technologies change everything, focal points shift, traditional companies have to reconfigure their approaches.”

The initiative “EFM Horizon” addresses this reality by facilitating a dialogue between participants of the EFM and representatives of other industries, in order to develop new strategies for the film industry. At the same time, a platform like “EFM Horizon” is able to react to the rapid changes taking place in the industry and adapt and expand its programme for trade visitors accordingly.

“Sustainability in our commitment to culture has been an integral part of our entrepreneurial activities for more than 50 years now. Platforms such as the Berlin International Film Festival promote interdisciplinary dialogue in an impressive manner and make the area where art meets technology immediately accessible for all to experience,” commented Dietmar Voggenreiter, Board Member for Sales and Marketing at AUDI AG. “That is why Audi is proud to expand our collaboration with innovative formats.”

Together with the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX) and the Berlin-based innovation studio Cinemathon, the EFM is set to launch the incubator programme “Propellor Film Tech Hub”. The programme’s mission is to enable innovation in the film industry by actively participating in shaping (and thus in the process also altering) the way that films are produced, distributed and experienced by viewers. In the framework of the EFM 2017, a first “Propellor” networking meeting, the “Propellor Speednic”, will take place.

The successful “EFM Startups” initiative will be continued under the umbrella of “EFM Horizon”. Selected European startups will present new technologies for production, distribution and marketing. The initiative is intended to pave the way for investments and connect potential partners.

In co-operation with the Virtual Reality e.V. Berlin-Brandenburg, the EFM will be presenting for the first time the “VR NOW Con Business Mixer”, where virtual reality pioneers and experts can come together to address the current impulses and trends shaping the sector. The “VR NOW Con Business Mixer” aims to bring EFM trade visitors together with movers and shakers from the international virtual reality scene.

Both initiatives are funded by the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

The “Game <3 Cinema” format, produced by Booster Space and first introduced at the International Games Week Berlin, will also be making an appearance at the EFM in 2017. This event format reimagines the movie theatre as a venue for combining the experience of playing a computer game with that of coming together in front of the big screen to share a moment with others. In a step beyond the traditional movie experience, exhibitors and buyers can join an audience of gaming enthusiasts to share a first-hand experience of the latter’s world in the cinema setting.

In the framework of “The Next Level of Cinema”, companies can present new products and offers to a selected target group of buyers, sales people, producers, exhibitors and cinema operators, whether they be revolutionary new projection technologies, new sound systems, new camera equipment or other similar developments.

“EFM Horizon presented by Audi”:

“Game <3 Cinema”

In co-operation with International Games Week Berlin

Friday, February 10, 2017

“EFM Startups”

Funded by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg

Monday, February 13, 2017

“VR NOW Con Business Mixer”

In co-operation with Virtual Reality e.V. Berlin-Brandenburg, funded by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg

Monday, February 13, 2017

“The Next Level of Cinema”

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

“Propellor Speednic”

In co-operation with IFFR, CPH:DOX and Cinemathon

http://www.propellorfilmtech.com/

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

First Films for the BerlinaleClassics 2017 Are Announced – Schwarzer Kies from Germany plus International Selections Avanti Popolo and Canoa

In addition to the German production Schwarzer Kies (Black Gravel) directed by Helmut Käutner, Rafi Bukaee’s Avanti Popolo from Israel and the Mexican film Canoa by Felipe Cazals will be shown in digitally restored versions as part of the BerlinaleClassics section. Since 2013, that segment of the Retrospective has attracted enthusiastic audiences with its newly-digitised versions of classic and newly-discovered films.

Canoa by Mexican director Felipe Cazals won a Silver Bear (Special Jury Prize) at the 1976 Berlinale and has now been digitally restored by The Criterion Collection with the participation of the Mexican Film Institute (Imcine) in honour of its 40^th anniversary. The film is based on true events that took place in 1968 in the remote village of San Miguel Canoa. A group of young university employees from Puebla is stranded in Canoa during a weekend outing; suspected of being communist students, the villagers mount an attack on them. The digital restoration was approved by director Felipe Cazals. The screening of Canoa is part of a focus on Mexican cinema; Mexico is the partner country of the 2017 European Film Market (EFM).

Director Rafi Bukaee's debut film Avanti Popolo (1986), a tragicomedy about the absurdity of war, is one of Israeli cinema’s most significant auteur films and was selected to represent the country at the Academy Awards in 1987. Telling the story of two Egyptian soldiers wandering through the Sinai desert after the Six-Day War, Bukaee played with the stereotypical images of Israelis and Arabs, and turned conventional clichés upside down. The film’s dialogue is largely Arabic; it was the first time in the history of Israeli film that Arab protagonists were portrayed by Arab actors. The restoration by the Jerusalem Cinematheque – Israel Film Archive of the film was done on the basis of the original 16-mm negative.

Schwarzer Kies (Black Gravel), made in 1961, was directed in American B movie style. After its premiere, the press was critical of the film, which took a pessimistic view of society in post-war Germany. One scene in the film also exposed Käutner to accusations of anti-Semitism. Käutner re-edited the film for the German market, giving it a somewhat less gloomy ending. The original version, as well as the theatrical version, survived in the archives of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Foundation. The foundation has now undertaken to digitise the original, premiere version, to safeguard it for the future.

“Käutner’s film is an outstanding example of an unvarnished view of the depths of Western Germany’s post-war reality. The use of the direct and high-contrast language of a B movie makes it a rarity that can now be re-discovered”, comments Rainer Rother, head of the Berlinale Retrospective section and artistic director of the Deutsche Kinemathek.

The full Berlinale Classics programme will be announced in January 2017.

The following films have been confirmed:

Avanti Popolo

By Rafi Bukai, Israel 1986

International premiere of the digitally restored version

In 2K DCP

Canoa

By Felipe Cazals, Mexico 1976

World premiere of the digitally restored version

In 2K DCP

Schwarzer Kies (Black Gravel)

By Helmut Käutner, West Germany 1961

World premiere of the digital version

In 4K DCP

Christian Jankowski

Artist and professor at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design Christian Jankowski; curator and social media manager at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art Kimberly Drew; and the artistic director of SANFIC (Santiago International Film Festival) Carlos Núñez make up the 2017 International Short Film Jury. They will award the Golden and the Silver Bear, as well as the Audi Short Film Award. In addition, the Jury will nominate one film for Best Short Film at the European Film Awards.

Maike Mia Höhne, curator of Berlinale Shorts, comments on the 2017 Jury: “The top-notch biographies of Jankowski, Drew and Núñez give us a jury for 2017 that combines three highly accomplished and very different points of view. I’m very pleased!”

Christian Jankowski (Germany)

Jankowski works in the area of concept and media arts using film, video, photography and performance, as well as painting, sculpture and installations. His special focus is on the performative interaction between the artist and an audience far removed from the professional art world. His works are exhibited in numerous museums and collections, and have been shown at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and 2013, among other events. In 2016, he curated the European Biennial of Contemporary Art in Zurich, “Manifesta 11”. Christian Jankowski also holds a professorship in sculpture at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design.

Kimberly Drew (USA)

Kimberly Drew is a curator, writer and the social media manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Her blog “Black Contemporary Art”, founded in 2011, and her Instagram channel “museummammy” are among the most influential digital platforms for African and African-American art worldwide. She has been awarded the AIR Gallery Feminist Curator Award and the Gold Rush Award by the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation for her curatorial work. Kimberly Drew studied art history and African-American studies with an emphasis on museum studies at Smith College in Northampton, USA.

Carlos Núñez (Chile)

Festival programmer and film producer Carlos Núñez is the co-founder and artistic director of SANFIC, the Santiago International Film Festival, an important forum for Chilean and Latin American film. In addition, he is the director and co-founder of the production and distribution company Storyboard Media. Among other films, he has co-produced La Mujer de Barro by Sergio Castro San Martín, which screened in Forum at the 2015 Berlinale. Carlos Núñez is also a university lecturer and a member of Cinema23, a platform for the promotion of film culture in Latin America, Spain and Portugal.

Sally Potter... 
Aki Kaurismäki, Oren Moverman, Agnieszka Holland  and Andres Veiel/  - First Films for the Competition of the Berlinale 2017

The first 14 films have been selected for the Competition and Berlinale Special section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival. So far ten productions and co-productions have been invited to the Competition from Belgium, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Lebanon, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Senegal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, and the USA.

As part of the official programme, Berlinale Special also presents topical works by contemporary filmmakers, documentaries and extraordinary formats. To date four productions have been invited.

Further announcements regarding programme selections will be made in the coming weeks.

Competition

A teströl és a lélekröl (On Body and Soul)

Hungary

By Ildiko Enyedi (My 20th Century, Simon the Magician)

With Géza Morcsányi, Alexandra Borbély, Zoltán Schneider

World premiere

Ana, mon amour

Romania / Germany / France

By Călin Peter Netzer (Child‘s Pose, Maria)

With Mircea Postelnicu, Diana Cavallioti, Carmen Tănase, Adrian Titieni, Vlad Ivanov

World premiere

Beuys - Documentary

Germany

By Andres Veiel (Black Box Germany, Addicted To Acting, If not us, Who)

World premiere

Colo

Portugal / France

By Teresa Villaverde (The Major Age, The Mutants, Trance)

With João Pedro Vaz, Alice Albergaria Borges, Beatriz Batarda, Clara Jost

World premiere

The Dinner

USA

By Oren Moverman (The Messenger, Rampart)

With Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan, Rebecca Hall, Chloë Sevigny

World premiere

Félicité

France / Senegal / Belgium / Germany / Lebanon

By Alain Gomis (L’Afrance, Andalucia, Tey)

With Véro Tshanda Beya, Gaetan Claudia, Papi Mpaka

World premiere

The Party

United Kingdom

By Sally Potter (Orlando, Yes, Ginger & Rosa)

With Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones, Emily Mortimer, Cillian Murphy, Kristin Scott Thomas, Timothy Spall

World premiere

Pokot (Spoor)

Poland / Germany / Czech Republic / Sweden / Slovak Republic

By Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa, Bitter Harvest, In Darkness)

With Agnieszka Mandat, Wiktor Zborowski, Miroslav Krobot, Jakub Gierszał, Patricia Volny, Borys Szyc

World premiere

Toivon tuolla puolen (The Other Side of Hope)

Finland

By Aki Kaurismäki (The Match Factory Girl, Juha, Le Havre)

With Sakari Kuosmanen, Sherwan Haji

International premiere

Una Mujer Fantástica

Chile / Germany / USA / Spain

By Sebastián Lelio (El Año del Tigre, Gloria)

With Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco, Aline Küppenheim, Amparo Noguera

World premiere

Berlinale Special

Berlinale Special Gala at the Friedrichstadt-Palast

La Reina de España (The Queen of Spain)

Spain

By Fernando Trueba (The Year of Awakening, Belle Époque, The Girl of Your Dreams)

With Penélope Cruz, Antonio Resines, Chino Darín, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Neus Asensi, Ana Belén

International premiere

Le jeune Karl Marx (The Young Karl Marx)

France / Germany / Belgium

By Raoul Peck (Sometimes In April, Moloch Tropical, Fatal Assistance)

With August Diehl, Stefan Konarske, Vicky Krieps, Hannah Steele, Olivier Gourmet

World premiere

Últimos días en La Habana (Last Days in Havana)

Cuba / Spain

By Fernando Pérez (Life Is to Whistle, Madrigal)

With Jorge Martínez, Patricio Wood, Gabriela Ramos

European premiere

Berlinale Special at the Volksbühne

Acht Stunden sind kein Tag (Eight Hours Don't Make a Day)

Federal Republic of Germany 1972 – TV series with 5 episodes

By Rainer Werner Fassbinder

With Hanna Schygulla, Gottfried John, Luise Ullrich, Werner Finck, Irm Hermann

World premiere of the restored version

Berlinale Talents and Perspektive Deutsches Kino have joined forces to award the inaugural “Kompagnon” fellowship. The fellowship will be awarded annually to two directors or screenwriters residing in Germany to support their artistic and professional development.

“Berlinale Talents and Perspektive Deutsches Kino are important promoters and springboards for filmmakers and screenwriters living in Germany. We're now providing them with a companion to accompany them on their journey through the German film landscape and to support them on a practical level,” comments Festival Director Dieter Kosslick on the “Kompagnon” fellowship.

Eligible to apply are directors and screenwriters of short or feature films who were part of the last edition of Perspektive Deutsches Kino, as well as permanent residents of Germany who will participate in the “Script Station”, “Doc Station” or “Short Film Station” at the upcoming edition of Berlinale Talents. In addition to a stipend of 5,000 euros (2,500 euros for short films) for the independent development of a screenplay or project, the “Kompagnon” also provides a mentoring programme to help strengthen the filmmakers’ artistic signature, alongside professional coaching and improved industry networking opportunities.

The jury, comprised of the three film professionals Sigrid Hörner, Feo Aladag and Johannes Naber, will select one winner from Berlinale Talents and one from Perspektive Deutsches Kino. The award ceremony will take place on February 17, 2017, during the closing evening of Perspektive Deutsches Kino.

The European Film Market (EFM) at the Berlin International Film Festival is considered one of the most important trade platforms for film rights and audiovisual content.

As the first industry gathering of the year, the EFM will open its doors on February 9, 2017, setting the trends for the upcoming year in film. The entire exhibition spaces, in the Martin-Gropius-Bau and the Marriott Hotel, are already fully reserved. More than 9,000 exhibitors, license traders, producers, buyers and investors are expected over the nine market days from February 9 to 17, 2017.

This year, the European Film Market has expanded in both space and content. New initiatives such as the “

Berlinale Africa Hub” and “EFM Horizon” provide forward-looking impetuses. The immensely popular “Drama Series Days”, presented by the EFM and the Berlinale Co-Production Market, has been expanded and moved into a new venue. The three-day edition of the segment will run from February 13 to 15 in the Zoo Palast, with panel discussions, market screenings and various networking events. The official partner of the “Drama Series Days” is the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW; it is mounted in cooperation with HBO Europe and the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. And at the 2017 EFM, Mexico will be the first “Country in Focus” – a new EFM initiative that the market plans to follow through with in upcoming years with different countries.

Of course, this year’s EFM continues with its established and successful segments “EFM Asia”, “Meet the Docs”, “American Independents in Berlin”, “EFM Producers Hub”, the “EFM Industry Debates” and LOLA at Berlinale.

“The European Film Market is one of the most important film markets world-wide and, since it’s at the start of the year, it’s a key seismograph for the year to come. The EFM is a trend-setter that keeps abreast of the radical changes in the industry”, says EFM director Matthijs Wouter Knol.

“There has rarely been as much movement and such a sense of euphoria in the film industry as there is now. We’re responding to that with our broad range of initiatives. At the same time, it’s extremely important that we provide optimal surroundings that offer dependability and stability in terms of infrastructure and content”, adds EFM president Beki Probst.

For additional information, visit www.efm-berlinale.de.

Focus on “Black Worlds” and “Europa Europa” I am not your Negro...

In the Panorama section, the first eleven films from a programme featuring a total of approximately 50 productions have been invited to be screened at the Berlinale, around a third of them for Panorama Dokumente. Two prominent themes have already emerged among the films selected to date: a fresh historically reflective approach to the history of black people in North America, South America and Africa (I Am Not Your Negro, Vazante, The Wound), and “Europa Europa”, which explores how progressive forces might best defend themselves in light of a zeitgeist that makes it seem as if yesterday never went away (Política, manual de instrucciones, Combat au bout de la nuit).

Further extraordinarily sensitive and artistic works have been invited, and festivalgoers can expect a high degree of formal and thematic diversity from the complete programme – also as regards rare countries of origin such as Bhutan or Kyrgyzstan.

In Focus: Reclaiming Black History

Vazante

Brazil / Portugal

By Daniela Thomas

With Adriano Carvalho, Luana Nastas, Juliana Carneiro da Cunha, Sandra Corveloni, Roberto Audio

World premiere

Daniela Thomas, co-director of many joint productions with Walter Salles, presents her solo directorial debut. Brazil was the last country to officially abolish slavery in its historical form, in 1888. This film’s story (co-authored by Beto Amaral) is set in 1821, one year before the South American nation gained its independence from Portugal. The wealth that is extracted from the country comes in the form of gemstones from the mines of Minas Gerais. The precious jewels are excavated from the belly of the mountain by slaves; still absent today is any significant memorial to the suffering they endured. Although this era represents the foundation upon which today’s Brazil was built, its culture has yet to recover from the monstrosity of these events.

I Am Not Your Negro

France / USA / Belgium / Switzerland

By Raoul Peck

Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson

European premiere

Raoul Peck is also an esteemed guest at the Berlinale. With I Am Not Your Negro, he has embarked on a long overdue reflection on the life of the great African-American writer James Baldwin and his political struggle against racism, whose roots go back to slavery. The black point of view, a black historiography are not yet anchored in mainstream consciousness. History is always written by the victors, and black people were never among them, neither Africans nor African-Americans. In James Baldwin, a powerfully eloquent intellectual took to the stage and set marks that are as invigoratingly crucial to reckon with today as they were 50 years ago. With I Am Not Your Negro and The Young Karl Marx in BerlinaleSpecial, Raoul Peck is represented twice in this year’s festival programme.

The Wound

South Africa / Germany / Netherlands / France

By John Trengove

With Nakhane Touré, Bongile Mantsai, Niza Jay Ncoyini

European premiere

The opening film for this year’s Panorama main programme comes from South Africa. The fabrication of masculinity has long been a consistent theme in Panorama. Here we are permitted to witness the initiation rites of an African tribe inhabiting the territory of the South African Republic. Tradition and modernity collide when an urbanised businessman from Johannesburg resolves to expose his 17-year-old son to the circumcision ceremony of his old tribe. Producer Elias Ribeiro previously delighted festival audiences in Panorama 2015 with Necktie Youth.

Europa Europa

Política, manual de instrucciones (Politics, Instructions Manual)

Spain

By Fernando León de Aranoa

European premiere

Feature film director Fernando León de Aranoa, a repeat guest at Panorama, enables us to take an in-depth look at the situation on the ground in Spain. The media noise concerning Syria, Trump and other earth-shaking events clouds the recognition of the foundation of our future: European politics. We think back to those heady days in West Germany as the Green Party was founded: Podemos was born of similar circumstances and can no longer be contained on the fringe, even as the dark forces of old regroup for an attack thanks to an unprocessed fascist past. A situation of repressed history, one which ticks away like a time bomb in many countries around the globe. This frightening zeitgeist requires the brave intervention of those who don’t want to be forced back behind the goal lines of recent history.

Combat au bout de la nuit (Fighting Through the Night)

Canada

By Sylvain L’Espérance

International premiere

This nearly five-hour-long documentary essay takes us directly to the heart of Europe’s misery: to Athens. In the Greek parliament building, innumerable articles are adopted to an audience of empty seats. The harbour landscape rolls past us, with its endless rows of administrative buildings, which will soon fall into the hands of financiers from other continents. Then we find ourselves right in the middle of an occupation of the tax office by its cleaning personnel – a long-term observation that plays out over the course of 28 days and provides space for empathetic encounters with marginalised individuals caught up in the crisis. The vacuum left behind by technocratic policies is filled by new fascists, who feign gestures of care for the forgotten – a scenario repeated in all of the nations of Europe and beyond its borders.

Casting JonBenet

USA

By Kitty Green

International premiere

Produced by James Schamus and Scott Macaulay, this film is a highly intelligent attempt to revisit the facts surrounding the unsolved violent death of six-year-old “beauty queen” JonBenet Ramsey. What was conceived as a celebration of the American dream family became a nightmare 20 years ago for the ever so omnipotent petty bourgeoisie.

Honeygiver Among the Dogs

Bhutan

By Dechen Roder

With Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk, Sonam Tashi Choden

European premiere

This debut feature from director Dechen Roder, who already presented a short film at the Berlinale in 2015, is a veritable Buddhist film noir. Atmospherically dense cinema, dynamically charged between tension and serenity, faith and morality.

Centaur

Kyrgyzstan / France / Germany / Netherlands

By Aktan Arym Kubat

With Nuraly Tursunkojoev, Zarema Asanalieva, Aktan Arym Kubat

World premiere

With a voice that speaks as if from another century and with the popular appeal of a fairy tale, this film tells the saga of the metaphysical bond between horse and humankind and how the former ended up becoming wings for the latter.

Pendular

Brazil / Argentina / France

By Julia Murat

With Raquel Karro, Rodrigo Bolzan

World premiere

Young director Julia Murat is a real discovery. Here she examines the relationship between a dance artist and a sculptor using the means of their particular art forms. A philosophical, original gender treatment of young bohemians poised on the verge of middle age.

Ri Chang Dui Hua (Small Talk)

Taiwan

By Hui-chen Huang

International premiere

A family story of a very special kind, produced by Hou Hsiao-hsien. The mother earns a living as a spirit guide for the deceased at their funerals: she was never at home, always out and about with her girlfriends instead. The daughter now goes to great lengths to attempt to understand her mother. A cosmos opens before us, one which manages to be of universal cultural significance and extremely intimate at the same time.

Untitled

Austria / Germany

By Michael Glawogger, Monika Willi

World premiere

“This film is intended to show an image of the world that can only be created when one does not pursue any subject, or make any value judgement or follow any objective. When one lets one’s self be carried along by nothing more than one’s own curiosity and intuition.” – Director Michael Glawogger passed away in 2014 during shooting for a movie. His editor Monika Willi has realised a fascinating film with material that was shot during a journey of four months and 19 days through the Balkan states, Italy, and Northwest and Western Africa – a journey undertaken in order to observe, to listen and to experience, with attentive eyes, bold and raw.

The first seven films have now been invited to participate in Perspektive Deutsches Kino’s programme in 2017: to date, four full-length graduation films and three 30-minute ones. “More so than ever it’s worth going to the Perspektive’s opening film and then making yourself comfortable in Berlinale cinemas for the subsequent nine days. Coming and staying guarantees you’ll feel lucky ten times over,” section head Linda Söffker says in anticipation of these ten fiery days in icy February.

Mia Spengler’s graduation film, Back for Good (prod: Zum Goldenen Lamm Filmproduktion, co-prod: Filmakademie Ludwigsburg) will open the Perspektive with the story of Angie, a former trash-TV starlet (Kim Riedle), her despised mother (Juliane Köhler), and her pubescent sister (Leonie Wesselow). By returning to the hick town of her childhood, Angie wreaks havoc on their relationships, so that all three have to redefine their roles in life. Back for Good is an ode to humanity – softly hummed while an auto-tuned pop song blares from the radio.

The fiction film Ein Weg (Paths, dir: Chris Miera, co-prod: Miera Film, Hildebrandt Film) was made while studying at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf and is the cautious exploration of a long love relationship that ends in separation. Over 15 years, as son Max gradually grows up, we accompany Andreas (Mike Hoffmann) and Martin (Mathis Reinhardt) through the highs and lows in the daily life of a partnership. Shot like a documentary, with a small team and budget at real locations, Ein Weg develops with great intensity and flexibility - and through the process of editing finds its special form of telling a story over time.

Director Tian Dong grew up in China and attended the KHM in Cologne. He has now completed his studies with the documentary Eisenkopf (Ironhead), about a young soccer team skilled in Shaolin kung fu. Tian Dong visits its young members at their sports school, and talks to them about their everyday lives and dreams. In doing so he paints an unsettling picture of China’s political situation.

In Julian Radlmaier’s new film, Selbstkritik eines bürgerlichen Hundes (Self-criticism of a Bourgeois Dog,  prod: Faktura Film, co-prod: dffb), a bourgeois dog confesses how he has gone through multiple transformations, from a love-struck filmmaker, to an apple picker, a traitor of the revolution, and, last but not least, a four-legged creature. In a political comedy full of burlesque escapades, we meet Camille, a young Canadian (Deragh Campbell); Hong and Sancho, a pair of proletarians who believe in miracles; a mute monk with magical powers; and a bunch of strange field labourers who indulge in idealistic visions.

All three of the medium-long works contemplate Europe and its future in quite similar yet different ways. What would happen if one day people in Europe had to flee, director Felicitas Sonvilla asks in her poetic science fiction film, Tara (prod: MOTEL Film Kollektiv; co-prod: HFF Munich). A young woman called Mira (Sasha Davydova) tells of her flight from Paris. In search of a different life she takes a train heading east to the utopianesque town of Tara. Kontener (Container) was the first medium-long fiction film that Sebastian Lang made at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. In it he portrays “two Polish ladies” who work at a dairy in Brandenburg. From the perspective of Maryna (Joanna Drozda), who narrates the story, the film depicts the last night before Tava (Anka Graczyk) disappears. The third film, titled Mikel, is about a young refugee who has left Nigeria for Berlin in search of a decent life with a properly paid job. It is the first medium-long film by Cavo Kernich, who with this work has completed his studies in “narrative film” under Thomas Arslan at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.

The entire Perspektive Deutsches Kino programme will be announced in January.

The following films have been invited so far:

Back for Good

By Mia Spengler

With Kim Riedle, Juliane Köhler, Leonie Wesselow

Feature film

World premiere

Eisenkopf (Ironhead)

By Tian Dong

Documentary film

World premiere

Kontener (Container)

By Sebastian Lang

With Joanna Drozda, Anka Graczyk

Medium-long feature film

World premiere

Mikel

By Cavo Kernich

With Jonathan Aikins

Medium-long feature film

World premiere

Selbstkritik eines bürgerlichen Hundes (Self-criticism of a Bourgeois Dog)

By Julian Radlmaier

With Julian Radlmaier, Deragh Campbell, Beniamin Forti, Kyung-Taek Lie, Ilia Korkashvili

Feature film

German premiere

Tara

By Felicitas Sonvilla

With Sasha Davydova, Leo van Kann, Lena Lauzemis

Medium-long feature film

World premiere

Ein Weg (Paths)

By Chris Miera

With Mike Hoffmann, Mathis Reinhardt

Feature film

World premiere

To attract attention to the Festival these inquisitive animals are again making their rounds through nocturnal Berlin. “Berlin is big and this year we’ll again follow the bear tracks to some typical spots in the capital,” remarks a delighted Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick. Once more the motifs have been designed by Velvet, a Swiss advertising agency.

The six posters in the series will be visible around town as of mid-January 2017. They will also be on sale at the Berlinale Online Shop starting January 16. 

The selection process for the 12th Forum Expanded is currently being finalised. This year’s theme is “The Stars Down to Earth”.

The search for ways to enable art to deal with an increasingly intangible reality forms an essential similarity between the selected works. Bringing one’s gaze back down to earth now seems more necessary than ever before. Yet how can one use film to take hold of something real when that very concept is ever harder to grasp?

The films and installations in the programme approach this question by attempting to both look and listen as closely as possible. In the video installation Twelve, for example, Jeamin Cha examines the pragmatic process underpinning the annual secret wage negotiations held between Korean employer and employee associations. Berlin artist Sandra Schäfer’s video installation Constructed Futures: Haret Hreik investigates city planning and redevelopment in Beirut and the political and religious ideologies they contain.

In her film Studies on the Ecology of Drama, Eija-Liisa Ahtila explores ways of finding film images that move beyond cinematographic anthropocentrism by shifting her gaze away from people and onto their environment.

The Karrabing Film Collective from Australia, whose work Wutharr, Saltwater Dreams is being presented in the group exhibition, shows three different variants of one and the same story, demonstrating how different approaches to a problem don’t just bring forth contradictory solutions but also mutually complimentary ones.

For his part, Joe Namy does away with pictorial representation almost entirely. His installation Purple, Bodies in Translation - Part II of “A Yellow Memory from the Yellow Age” merely shows a purple-colour surface, while the soundtrack explores the question of which details are lost in translation and what additional elements and contradictions are created by the differences between subtitles and image.

The central event location is once again the Akademie der Künste at Hanseatenweg. A group exhibition of works by 14 artists takes place here together with screenings of numerous films. The artists already invited include Haig Aivazian, James Benning, Duncan Campbell, Anja Dornieden and Juan Gonzales, Noam Enbar, Mohamed A. Gawad and Lina Attalah, Eva Heldmann, Laura Horelli, Oliver Hussain, Ken Jacobs, Mahmoud Lotfy, Bernd Lützeler, Peter Miller, Rawane Nassif, Tomonari Nishikawa, Marouan Omara and Islam Kamal, Lukasz Ronduda, Ginan Seidl, Philip Scheffner, Merle Kröger and Izadora Nistor, Fern Silva, and Mohanad Yaqubi.

Forum Expanded will also be presenting different film archives and archive projects as part of a symposium to be held at the Kuppelhalle at the silent green Kulturquartier in Wedding, including ones from Nigeria, Indonesia, and the Palestinian Territories. SAVVY Contemporary are presenting an installation by Israeli filmmaker and artist Amos Gitai in their own exhibition space at the same location.

The Marshall McLuhan Salon at the Embassy of Canada at Leipziger Platz and the Arsenal Cinema at the Filmhaus at Potsdamer Platz form the other festival locations once again.

The full list of participating artists will be announced in the next press release in mid-January.

The works for this edition of Forum Expanded were selected by Stefanie Schulte Strathaus (head curator), Anselm Franke (Haus der Kulturen der Welt), Nanna Heidenreich (ifs internationale filmschule köln), Khaled Abdulwahed (filmmaker and artist) and Ulrich Ziemons (Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art), with Bettina Steinbrügge (Hamburger Kunstverein) acting as a consultant.

Selection Process for Feature Film Programme at Halfway Mark

In the two competitions Kplus and 14plus, 15 feature films have already been selected for the 40th edition of Generation. Exhibiting an impressive range of cinematic approaches, these productions tell the stories of young people on inner and outer journeys and capture a sense of longing for new and altered horizons. The complete programme for Generation will be made public in mid-January.

Opening Film 14plus

Michael Winterbottom is slated to open the programme of Generation 14plus in the newly renovated Haus der Kulturen der Welt with a special screening of his vibrant music documentary On the Road. Shot in the characteristic hybrid style that has become the English director’s trademark, his newest outing follows the members of the band Wolf Alice on tour as they travel back and forth across their native Great Britain, where they have caused quite a stir in recent years. The film intimately portrays life on the road, in all its ecstasy and exhaustion. The connection between the musicians and their fans is palpable and there is a fine interplay between watching and listening amongst concert and film audiences.

Generation14plus

Almost Heaven

United Kingdom

By Carol Salter

World premiere

Far from home, 17-year-old Ying Ling practices for her examination to become a mortician at one of China’s largest funeral homes. In addition to frequent qualms and farewell ceremonies, the everyday routine of this unusual occupation also serves up both humorous and life affirming moments. Carol Salter’s debut outing is an empathetic documentary portrait touching on fears, friendship and coming of age amidst ghosts and the dearly departed.

Butterfly Kisses

United Kingdom

By Rafael Kapelinski

World premiere

Jake and his friends pass their time hanging out in the courtyards of their high-rise development or in pool halls, talking about girls, watching pornos and getting drunk. Jake is burdened by a dark secret that distances him more and more from the others and drives him into dangerous isolation. Rafael Kapelinski stages his debut film in contrasting black and white, moving in respectful proximity to his characters, brought to life vividly here by an ensemble cast of new discoveries and young talents (including Thomas Turgoose - This Is England, Generation 2007).

Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n'ont fait que se creuser un tombeau (Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves)

Canada

By Mathieu Denis, Simon Lavoie

European premiere

With epic scope and stunning polymorphism, the film follows a group of young people in Québec who resolve to form a revolutionary cell together in the aftermath of student protests. This unflinching work from Mathieu Denis (Corbo, Generation 2015) and Simon Lavoie employs its protagonists to play through what it might mean to instigate a revolution and devote one’s life to a cause in today’s world.

Emo the Musical

Australia

By Neil Triffett

International premiere

The forbidden high school love between Ethan, the shy Emo kid with suicidal tendencies, and chipper Christian activist Trinity previously delighted Generation audiences as a short film in 2014. Director Neil Triffett is back with his heartbreakingly funny musical grotesque, now in feature-film length, and chock full of even more colourful characters to light up the big screen.

Mulher do pai(A Woman and the Father)

Brazil / Uruguay

By Cristiane Oliveira

International premiere

After the death of her grandmother, 16-year-old Nalu is left to care for her father alone. Any hope of leaving her dismal village now seems to have receded far off into the distance. Cristiane Oliveira’s coming-of-age drama, a work of slowly paced cinema characterised by respectful intimacy and subtle physicality, paints the complex portrait of a relationship between an adolescent daughter and her blind father.

My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea

USA

By Dash Shaw

European premiere

He’s not exactly popular, he’s got friend problems, he wants to make it big with the school paper and he goes by the name of his inventor, Dash. In the school basement, he discovers a secret that rocks the very foundations of his world. Graphic novelist Shaw hopes that his film will reach 15-year-old nerds who are just as crazy about drawings and paintings as he himself was at their age. This work of animation virtually spilling over with ingenuity (and featuring the voice-over talents of Jason Schwartzman, Maya Rudolph, Lena Dunham and Susan Sarandon) is sure to delight young viewers outside of this particular demographic as well.

Krolewicz Olch (The Erlprince)

Poland

By Kuba Czekaj

European premiere

The action in The Erlprince builds and surges as dramatically as the ballad by Goethe from which it borrows its title. The boundaries between reality, desire and appearance are blurred in this futuristically tinged film about an extraordinarily gifted young man and his ambitious and wondrous mother. Expressed in a form as unconventional as the characters it portrays, the film oscillates between the poles of both science and nature and love and violence.

Weirdos

Canada

By Bruce McDonald

European premiere

Just after the end of the Vietnam War and in the midst of the American bicentennial celebrations of 1976, runaway Kit and his girlfriend Alice hitchhike their way along the east coast of Canada. Bruce McDonald (The Tracey Fragments, Panorama 2007) has managed to create a coming-of-age film that shines equally as a road movie, one driven by a fantastic soundtrack composed of deep cuts from the era in question. A rebellious trip in black and white, in which all sense of certainty gets left by the wayside.

GenerationKplus

As duas Irenes (Two Irenes)

Brazil

By Fabio Meira

World premiere

In the shimmering heat of Brazil, 13-year-old Irene discovers a dark secret her father’s been hiding: he has another family and even another daughter with the same name. Irene embarks on a risky game that could blow up in her face at any moment. The languid summer atmosphere of Fabio Meira’s feature film debut can’t hide the fact that something is simmering right under the surface.

Die Häschenschule - Jagd nach dem Goldenen Ei (Rabbit School - Guardians of the Golden Egg)

Germany

By Ute von Münchow-Pohl

World premiere

Scrappy city rabbit Max finds shelter in a hidden Easter bunny school after a misadventure with a model plane leaves him stranded far beyond the city limits. Here he encounters the keepers of the legendary Golden Egg, itself the coveted prize of scheming foxes. After an initial bout with boredom, the secret techniques of the Easter bunnies finally arouse Max’s curiosity. This lovingly drawn German animation film, based on the 1924 classic, is a pure delight buoyed by imagination and brisk pacing and graced with the voices of Senta Berger, Friedrich von Thun, Jule Böwe and Noah Levi.

Primero enero (January)

Argentina

By Darío Mascambroni

European premiere

Primero enero is the directorial debut of Argentinian filmmaker Darío Mascambroni. 11-year-old Valentino’s life goes off the rails when his parents get divorced, challenging him to see the world from a different angle. In a tender and moving father-son story, the director takes his protagonists and his viewers out to the countryside, into a world of heightened sensitivity.

Red Dog: True Blue

Australia

By Kriv Stenders

European premiere

Australian director Stenders delighted Generation audiences in 2011 with a legendary story about a very special dog. Now, at the centre of this sequel - which is also a prequel-  the red canine is joined by 11-year-old Mick, who treasures his bond with his four-legged friend above all else. Destiny has brought the duo together on a farm in the Australian outback, where the two partake in mystical adventures and Mick encounters his first true love. With great humour and sensitivity, the film is a tale of growing up in a time of transformation.

Richard the Stork

Germany / Belgium / Luxemburg / Norway

By Toby Genkel, Reza Memari

World premiere

Even though everybody else thinks he’s a sparrow – Richard himself holds tight to the conviction that he is in fact a stork. In this fast-paced adventure, Toby Genkel and Reza Memari tell the story of a bird who sets off self-confidently on a winter trip to Africa in a literal rite of passage that simultaneously serves as an empathetic tale about otherness and self-discovery. This German-international co-production provides spellbinding entertainment with its fantastic and fanciful fable showcasing top-shelf animation.

Tesoros

Mexico

By María Novaro

World premiere

Siblings Dylan and Andrea set off with their new friends on a marvellous journey of discovery in search of long lost pirate loot. In refreshingly sunny images, María Novaro gets up close to her characters to tell a story of children confidently indulging their lust for life and curiosity. In a commune on Mexico’s Pacific coast, they are given space to go their own ways and together find something much more valuable than buried treasure.

Shi Tou (Stonehead)

People’s Republic of China

By Xiang Zhao

World premiere

10-year-old Shi Tou, the son of a migrant labourer, grows up alone with his grandmother. It’s so hard to tell right from wrong! Sharing a reward with a classmate or waiting until his father returns, obeying his teacher of protecting his friend – which one should he choose? With documental authenticity, Xiang Zhao paints a portrait of life in rural China and a society in which an entire generation has too often been left to grow up in the absence of their parents.

From February 8 to 16 the German Film Critics Association will present the third edition of the ‘Berlin Critics’ Week’. The annual film and debate series will be launched with a conference on the political dimensions of contemporary cinema and the question, whether its political messages seem to prevail over artistic forms. Amongst others, we will welcome Greek director and producer Athina Rachel Tsangari (“Attenberg”, “Chevalier”), film critic Joachim Lepastier (Cahiers du Cinéma), philosopher Alexander Garcìa Düttmann and Carlos Gerstenhauer, chief producer for cinema and first features at Bayerischer Rundfunk.

After the considerable attention our first conference on the state of German cinema drew in February 2016 an opening conference will become a recurring part of the Berlin Critics’ Week.

Lost in Politics

Do films have to be political?

Or: On contemporary cinema, how it risks being taken over by content and why it is afraid of art

Films defending the weak and presenting moral heroes are ubiquitous. Maybe today there is a real demand for this kind of filmmaking, as it is being celebrated and awarded with countless prizes. Take for example Jacques Audiard’s dramatic refugee thriller “Dheepan”, that won Cannes in 2015, the essay film on Lampedusa, Gianfranco Rosi’s “Fuocoammare”, that triumphed in Berlin 2016 or this year‘s Golden Palm winner in Cannes, Ken Loach’s “I, Daniel Blake”, about a carpenter marginalized by the welfare bureaucracy.

Among the films with a political message we find boring and exciting, outstanding and exasperating ones. Yet all of them have one thing in common: they are being marketed as relevant and important. That also poses a challenge to film critics who far too often take up the political argument handed to them by the film and its defenders instead of actually talking about cinema: the political headline takes the place of aesthetic discourse.

On the eve of the film event that is routinely referred to as the most political of the big festivals, we will inquire the value of the political in cinema and ask how it is possible to make films politically instead of turning cinema into politics.

How seriously do films and their creators take their political engagement? Is a film only important if its topic is political? Or is that only a condition for it to be financed in the first place in a system of subsidies awarded by committees? And especially: what effect does it have on the art of filmmaking if cinema defines itself by thematic content? What does that mean for its most elementary means of expression: the artistic form?

Berlin Critics’ Week

The opening conference will be followed by the third Berlin Critics’ Week, a selection of seven screenings and debates. Contemporary films presented at Hackesche Höfe cinema will spark interdisciplinary discussions on cultural politics and aesthetics. Amongst the guests of the past editions were Richard Brody, film critic for the “New Yorker”, artist Heba Amin, festival directors Charles Tesson (Semaine de la Critique) and Hans Hurch (Viennale), producer Paulo Branco, filmmakers Philippe Grandrieux and Denis Côté, as well as actress Ariane Labed.

The Berlin Critics’ Week is organized by the German Film Critics Association.

On February 9, 2017, the 67^th Berlin International Film Festival will open with the world premiere of Etienne Comar’s directorial debut: Django.

Django will participate in the official competition of the Berlinale.The French film revolves around Django Reinhardt, the famous guitarist and composer, and his flight from German-occupied Paris in 1943. Within moments, this superb guitarist was able to reach people’s hearts with his instrument. Yet as Sinti, his family was harassed and hounded by the Nazis.

“Django Reinhardt was one of the most brilliant pioneers of European jazz and the father of Gypsy Swing. Django grippingly portrays one chapter in the musician’s eventful life and is a poignant tale of survival. Constant danger, flight and the atrocities committed against his family could not make him stop playing,” says Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick.

Director Etienne Comar has already made a name for himself as a screenwriter and producer - Of Gods and Men, Haute Cuisine, My King - and co-producer - The Women on the 6^th Floor, Timbuktu.

For Django, Comar’s first work as a director, he cast actor Reda Kateb (Far from Men) in the title role. Starring alongside him are Cécile de France (The Kid with a Bike), as well as Alex Brendemühl and Ulrich Brandhoff.

The screenplay is written by Etienne Comar and Alexis Salatko. Django Reinhardt's music was re-recorded for the film by the famous Dutch jazz band Rosenberg Trio.

The film is produced by Fidélité, Arches Films and Pathé. Pathé International will be handling international sales.

Altered Spirits
Scifi, action

Four young people are pulled into an alternate dimension through a portal in a sweat lodge. On the other side four murderous spirits of centuries-old gold hunters await to steal the young peoples’ bodies and return to the living world.

Watch the trailer for "Altered Spirits"

ALIENS VS TITAN1C
Sci-fi

Offering only the finest amenities, the ‘TITAN 1C’ space-cruiser is considered the most luxurious star-liner ever built. Future spring-breakers on board are excited to be touring through space with some of the world’s elite. A sudden meteor storm smashes into the hull, and a deadly biological alien life-form is let loose on the ship. Seeking a suitable host, the retrovirus successfully merges with some the passengers, transforming them into seemingly invincible predators with the “touch of death”. As the ship is destroyed, the surviving passengers crash on a remote planet, and they learn that one of them is “infected”. They must quickly band together before it has a chance to slaughter them all.

Watch the trailer for "ALIENS VS TITAN1C"

Genesis: Fall of the Crime Empire
Sci-fi, action

To a detective and his partner, events seem like typical gangland power struggle, but a feared criminal puppeteer seeks a powerful ancient artifact to bring about a new era.


Watch the trailer for "Genesis: Fall of the Crime Empire
 

Crushed Velvet
Sci-fi

In a world with no censorship, Dusty Velvet gets "locked In" on a game show in hopes to win millions and buy her husband out of certain death. She becomes the next reality show sensation as her world falls apart. 

Watch the trailer for "Crushed Velvet"
 

Interstates
Sci-fi

An escapist hacker and his high-tech counterpart journey through surveillance state America, crossing frontiers that test their friendship and ignite a fight for independence.

 
Watch the trailer for "Interstates"
 

2021
Sci-fi, Thriller

John Cooper is a computer programming genius who starts working on a project to reverse engineer human intelligence using a map of the human genome.


Watch the trailer for "2021"

 

Prelude to Infusco
Sci-fi

Six rebel figures have taken refuge in an abandoned sector against a genetically enhanced superhuman race, where they are forced to reconcile their fate.


Watch the trailer for "Prelude to Infusco"


 

Independent Wars: Insurgence
Sci-fi

From a giant portal behind the dark side of the moon aliens starts an attack on earth. From a secret underground base scientists try to find a way to fight the aliens. Time is of the essence as people are dying and soon the aliens have full control. 


Watch the trailer for "Indepence Wars: Insurgence
 

Alienators
Sci-fi

Two amateur Ufologists investigate a woman’s claim that aliens are watching her. Two weeks later, she disappears under mysterious circumstances. During a missing persons investigation, confiscated footage leaks onto the internet, receiving over 2 million hits in just 3 hours before the authorities take it down. But many who saw the footage say it contained the most compelling and terrifying evidence of alien existence ever captured. This is that footage, compiled and released by The Civilian Department of Ufology, a privately owned UFO research and investigation organization.

Watch the trailer for "Alienators"

 

Berlinale Talents welcomes 250 emerging professionals from 71 countries to its 15^th edition. Exploring the theme “Courage: Against All Odds”, the Talents will participate in a six-day programme featuring over 100 events, with many open to the public. Environmental sculptor Christo is going to join Berlinale Talents. The acclaimed artist will be one of around 100 internationally renowned experts presenting and discussing their work. Berlinale Talents will again take place in the theatres of HAU Hebbel am Ufer from February 11 to 16, 2017.

Festival Director Dieter Kosslick comments on the upcoming anniversary edition: “Since 2003 we have welcomed 5,128 young Talents to Berlin, with over 100 returning to the festival or the film market each year. This extended network symbolises cultural exchange across all borders, keeps the festival cutting-edge and is living proof that talent development always pays off.”

An international selection committee chose the 250 Talents out of 2,711 applicants from 127 nations based on their prior achievements and the impact and relevance of their artistic work in their home countries. The 2017 Talents hail from the fields of directing (106), producing (49), acting (15), screenwriting (5), cinematography (17), editing (14), production design (13), film criticism (8), sales and distribution (10), score composing (6) and sound design (8). Out of these, 40 participants with projects in development have been selected for Project Labs in the categories documentary, fiction and short film. The Talents are usually five to ten years into their careers and have extensive professional expertise, considerable festival exposure and, often times, award-winning films under their belts.

ARRI New Co-Partner of Berlinale Talents

In order to further boost its talent development, Berlinale Talents is delighted to welcome ARRI as a co-partner in 2017. Boasting a long tradition, the company is a global leader in the development, manufacturing and marketing of camera and lighting systems for the film industry, and is also active as an integrated media service provider in postproduction and in the rental of camera, lighting and stage equipment. ARRI will support the 2017 Berlinale Talents programme with several events focusing on technical innovation in image and light design as well as digital postproduction. These include, among others, a workshop with leading experts at the “Camera Studio” and a case study on a large TV drama series production.

“ARRI and Berlinale Talents share core values such as a pioneering spirit, a dedication to perfecting their craft and a passion for artistic work. It is an honour for us to have gained a strong and visionary partner such as ARRI, especially on its 100th company anniversary,” Berlinale Talents Project Manager Christine Tröstrum comments.

Dr. Jörg Pohlman, Managing Director of ARRI AG, adds: “Berlinale Talents is where success stories are created and future trends are forged. It’s important to us to actively support this major platform for talent development and to help shape the programme. We very much look forward to the ideas and contributions of the international Talents and wish all participants a successful Berlinale Talents 2017.”

More Information: The 250 Talents | The 40 Accepted Film Projects

Berlinale Talents: www.berlinale-talents.de 

Animation / India-France-Germany / Delivery: Cannes 2019 / English / Pre-Production

From the team behind Oscar® nominated Waltz with Bashir and multi award winning Director, Gitanjali Rao comes her first feature animation: BOMBAY ROSE.

Director: Gitanjali Rao
Synopsis: On the Bollywood-soaked streets of Bombay, many lives and loves come together through the story of one red rose.

Click HEREfor a presentation of the film. Password: BRTiff2016

Script available upon request

Award nominated shorts:
TrueLoveStory (Cannes Critic’s Week 2012)Password: orange
Printed Rainbow (Cannes Critic’s Week 2006)

Romance / New Zealand / Delivery: Cannes 2018 / English / Pre-Production

From the producer of the Oscar® nominated Whale Rider, the Emmy and Bafta winning director, Bharat Nalluri and the actress of The Lunchbox comes this charming love story.

Director: Bharat Nalluri (MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR TODAY)
Producers: John Barnett (WHALE RIDER), Sally Campbell (EVIL DEAD)
Writers: Jacob Rajan, Justin Lewis & Kate McDermott
Cast: Nimrat Kaur, Manoj Bajpai, Nawazuddin Siddiqui
Synopsis: 1983. New Zealand. Gobi, an immigrant Indian shopkeeper struggles to make a better life and to prove to his homesick wife Zina that his love for her is as great as the love that built the Taj Mahal.

Click HEREfor a presentation of the film

Script available upon request

Based on Jacob Rajan’s play Krishnan’s Dairy

Comedy / India / 2016 / Hindi / 99 min.

Screening for the first time at a market after its success in Venice and Busan.

Director: Shubhashish Bhutiani
Writers: Shubhashish Bhutiani, Asad Hussain
Producer: Sanjay Bhutiani
Cast: Adil Hussain, Lalit Behl, Geetanjali Kulkarni
Synopsis: Faced with his father's untimely and bizarre demand to go and die in the holy city of Varanasi and attain Salvation, a son is left with no choice but to embark on this journey.

Click HEREto watch the TRAILER

SCREENING DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED

23 films from 19 countries will be competing for the Golden and the Silver Bear as well as the Audi Short Film Award, worth € 20,000, and a nomination for the European Film Awards at the 2017 edition of Berlinale Shorts. The Algerian film Monangambeee, produced in 1969 and directed by Sarah Maldoror, will also be screened out of competition.

The International Short Film Jury 2017 will be composed of Christian Jankowski, artist and professor at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, curator and social media manager of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York Kimberly Drew and the artistic director of SANFIC Santiago International Film Festival Carlos Núñez (see press release from December 13, 2016).

The Berlinale Shorts competition will feature works from a wide range of filmmakers including Gabriel Abrantes, Salomé Lamas, Jonathan Vinel, Victor Lindgren, Lukas Marxt and Marcel Odenbach, Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca, David OReilly and Rainer Kohlberger.

“A preconceived image, a clichéd notion of something or someone, can only alter its form if my own view of things expands to include a new perspective. All of the films selected for Berlinale Shorts 2017 have in common the fact that they invite one to recalibrate one’s own perception,” commented curator Maike Mia Höhne in reference to this year’s  programme.

In his new film keep that dream burning, Berlin-based director Rainer Kohlberger visualizes an intimation for everything new that comes into being: a promise of the greatest possible indeterminacy.

The Boy from H2 on the other hand, produced by the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, takes us right out on the street so that we may be able to experience what it means to live as a 12-year-old in the divided city of Hebron, opposite ever-present security forces.

David OReilly (Please Say Something, Golden Bear for Best Short Film 2009 & RGB XYZ, Berlinale Shorts 2008 ), who will also speak about his filmmaking philosophy at the 2017 edition of Berlinale Talents, will present his new computer game Everything. Everything is the complete opposite of how we commonly conceive of games – there are no levels to be reached, instead there is only the possibility to become anyone and everything. The insight acquired along the way represents a reframing.

Jonathan Vinel (Notre Héritage, Berlinale Shorts 2016 & Tant qu’il nous reste des fusils à pompe, Golden Bear for Best Short Film 2014, both created in collaboration with Caroline Poggi) rearranges sequences from the video game Grand Theft Auto V into a new narrative about losing one’s friends in his film Martin Pleure.

In Avant l’envol, the modern, futuristic architecture that sprang up in Ivory Coast in the wake of independence from France assumes the role of protagonist, an architecture that stands for the newly gained self-confidence of the period. The film Monangambeee, which is part of the collection of Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art e. V. and was only recently digitized, bears witness to a cinematic practice in opposition to colonial oppression.

The extraordinary diversity of Portuguese cinema is represented by no less than four productions at Berlinale Shorts, including among others the most recent work from filmmaker Salomé Lamas (Eldorado XXI, Forum 2016 & Terra de ninguém, Forum 2013), Coup de Grâce, in which a father and daughter explore a space marked by absence. João Salaviza’s new film Altas Cidades de Ossadas follows a Creole rapper on a deep dive into the darkness of night and the aggressive poetry of his lyrics. In 2012 Salaviza took home the Golden Bear for Best Short Film for Rafa, dedicating the award to the Portuguese government: “We are in a moment where we really don’t know what will happen,” Salaviza declared at the time, adding that the dedication was contingent on the administration taking a stand to improve conditions for the country’s filmmakers. Today the situation in Portugal has improved considerably through structural changes in funding.

Included among the films to be screened at Berlinale Shorts 2017 are:

Altas Cidades de Ossadas (High Cities of Bone), João Salaviza, Portugal, 19’ (WP)

Avant l'envol, Laurence Bonvin, Switzerland, 20’ (IP)

The Boy from H2, Helen Yanovsky, Israel / Palestinian Territories, 21’ (WP)

Call of Cuteness, Brenda Lien, Germany, 4’ (WP)

Centauro (Centaur), Nicolás Suárez, Argentina, 14’ (IP)

Cidade Pequena (Small Town), Diogo Costa Amarante, Portugal, 19’ (IP)

Coup de Grâce, Salomé Lamas, Portugal, 26’ (WP)

The Crying Conch, Vincent Toi, Canada, 20’ (WP)

Ensueño en la Pradera (Reverie in the Meadow), Esteban Arrangoiz Julien, Mexico, 17’ (WP)

Estás vendo coisas (You are seeing things), Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca, Brazil, 18’ (IP)

Everything, David OReilly, USA / Ireland, 11’ (WP)

Le film de l'été (A Summer’s Film), Emmanuel Marre, France / Belgium, 30’ (WP)

Fishing Is Not Done On Tuesdays, Lukas Marxt & Marcel Odenbach, Germany / Austria, 15’ (WP)

Fuera de Temporada (Out of Season), Sabrina Campos, Argentina, 23’ (WP)

Hiwa, Jacqueline Lentzou, Greece, 11’ (WP)

Os Humores Artificiais (The Artificial Humors), Gabriel Abrantes, Portugal, 30’ (WP)

keep that dream burning, Rainer Kohlberger, Germany / Austria, 8’ (WP)

Kometen (The Comet), Victor Lindgren, Sweden, 11’ (IP)

Martin Pleure (Martin Cries), Jonathan Vinel, France, 16’ (WP)

Miss Holocaust, Michalina Musielak, Poland / Germany, 22’ (WP)

Monangambeee, Sarah Maldoror, Algeria, 15’ – Out of competition

Oh Brother Octopus, Florian Kunert, Germany, 27’ (WP)

The Rabbit Hunt, Patrick Bresnan, USA / Hungary, 12’ (IP)

Street of Death, Karam Ghossein,  Lebanon / Germany, 23’ (WP)

67^th Berlinale: Competition and BerlinaleSpecial - Danny Boyle, Hong Sangsoo, Thomas Arslan, Volker Schlöndorff, Sabu, Álex de la Iglesia and Josef Hader’s Directorial Debut in the Competition Programme

Competition

The following films will be celebrating world or international premieres in the Competition of the Berlinale 2017.

Bamui haebyun-eoseo honja (On the Beach at Night Alone)

South Korea

By Hong Sangsoo (Nobody's Daughter Haewon, Right Now, Wrong Then)

With Kim Minhee, Seo Younghwa, Jung Jaeyoung, Moon Sungkeun, Kwon Haehyo, Song Seonmi, Ahn Jaehong, Park Yeaju

World premiere

 

El Bar (The Bar)

Spain

By Álex de la Iglesia (Mad Circus,The Day of the Beast, The Oxford Murders)

With Blanca Suárez, Mario Casas, Carmen Machi, Terele Pávez, Secun de la Rosa, Alejandro Awada, Joaquín Climent, Jaime Ordóñez

World premiere - Out of competition

Helle Nächte (Bright Nights)
Germany / Norway
By Thomas Arslan (Dealer, Vacation, In the Shadows, Gold)
With Georg Friedrich, Tristan Göbel, Marie Leuenberger, Hanna Karlberg
World premiere

Joaquim
Brazil / Portugal
By Marcelo Gomes (Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures, The Man of the Crowd, I Travel Because I Have to, I Come Back Because I Love You)
With Julio Machado, Isabél Zuaa, Nuno Lopes, Rômulo Braga, Welket Bungué, Karay Rya Pua
World premiere

Logan
USA
By James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted;Walk The Line, The Wolverine)
With Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Doris Morgado, Sienna Novikov, Elizabeth Rodriguez
World premiere - Out of competition

Mr. Long
Japan / Germany / Hong Kong, China / Taiwan
By Sabu (Monday, Chasuke’s Journey)
With Chen Chang, Sho Aoyagi, Yiti Yao, Junyin Bai
World premiere

Return to Montauk

Germany / France / Ireland

By Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum, Diplomatie)

With Stellan Skarsgård, Nina Hoss, Susanne Wolff, Niels Arestrup

World premiere

T2 Trainspotting

United Kingdom

By Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, The Beach, Slumdog Millionaire)

With Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller, Ewen Bremner

International premiere - Out of competition

Viceroy’s House
India / United Kingdom

By Gurinder Chadha (Bend it like Beckham, What’s Cooking)
With Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi
World premiere - Out of competition

Wilde Maus (Wild Mouse)
Austria
By Josef Hader
With Josef Hader, Pia Hierzegger, Georg Friedrich, Jörg Hartmann, Denis Moschitto
World premiere – First Feature

Berlinale SpecialGala at the Friedrichstadt-Palast

Es war einmal in Deutschland... (Bye Bye Germany)

Germany / Luxemburg / Belgium

By Sam Garbarski (The Rashevski’s Tango, Irina Palm, Quartier Lointain)

With Moritz Bleibtreu, Antje Traue, Mark Ivanir, Tim Seyfi, Hans Löw, Anatol Taubman, Pál Mácsai, Vaclav Jakoubek

World premiere

Berlinale SpecialGala at the Zoo Palast

In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts (In Times of Fading Light)

Germany

By Matti Geschonneck (Boxhagener Platz, Das Zeugenhaus)

In collaboration with Wolfgang Kohlhaase

With Bruno Ganz, Hildegard Schmahl, Sylvester Groth, Evgenia Dodina, Natalia Belitski, Alexander Fehling, Gabriela Maria Schmeide

World premiere

Berlinale Special at Kino International

Masaryk (AProminent Patient)

Czech Republic / Slovakia

By Julius Sevcík (Restart, Normal - The Düsseldorf Ripper)

With Karel Roden, Hanns Zischler, Arly Jover, Oldrich Kaiser, Dermot Crowley, Milton Welsch, Eva Herzigova

World premiere

A further 13 films have thus been invited to screen in the Competition and Berlinale Special section at the 67th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival.

In addition to the previously announced titles (see press releases from January 4, 2017 and December 15, 2016), productions from Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong – China, India, Ireland, Japan, Luxemburg, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, United Kingdom and the USA have now been added to the programme. Austrian actor Josef Hader will be presenting his directorial debut in the Berlinale Competition 2017.

The complete programme of the Competition and Berlinale Special will be announced soon.