Oscar-Winning Actress & World Director at Berlinale Opening

You can also listen to the article in audio version.

The 76th edition of the Berlinale festival began this Thursday evening in the German capital with the arrival of guests on the red carpet. Actors Daniel Brühl, Neil Patrick Harris, Bella Ramsey known from the series The Last of Us or Michelle Yeoh greeted the audience looking familiar faces. The former Bond girl and Oscar winner for Everything, Everywhere suddenly accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Hollywood stars Pamela Anderson, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke should arrive in the next few days. The show will last until next Saturday, February 22, with 22 films competing for the Golden Bear main prize.

The Berlinale has a reputation for being more of a political event than rival shows in Venice and Cannes. In recent years, it was possible to see gestures of solidarity with the protesters in Iran or with the victims of the Russian war in Ukraine. Organizers, on the other hand, faced criticism from local activists for not speaking up more loudly for the Palestinians.

“I think filmmakers shouldn’t get involved in politics,” director Wim Wenders answered this Thursday when asked what he thought of the German government’s stance on the events in the Gaza Strip. “If we made overly political films, we would already be entering politics. But we create a counterweight to politics,” added the 80-year-old author of the films The Sky Over Berlin or Perfect Days.

According to him, movies can change the world. “But not politically. No film has yet changed the opinion of a politician. But we can focus on how people think, what idea they have about their lives,” says the director.

This year, Wim Wenders chairs the seven-member festival jury, which he describes as a unique experience. “Berlin always shows a more colorful face of the world than other festivals. That is the strength of the Berlinale,” says the head of the jury, which this year includes four guests from Asia: Min Bahadur Bham from Nepal, South Korean actress Bae Doona, Indian director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur and Japanese filmmaker Hikari.

The opening film of this year is an Afghan romantic drama called No Good Men. It tells the story of a TV camerawoman who is getting divorced and is starting to doubt men more and more. The film takes place in the Afghan metropolis of Kabul in 2021, before the Taliban once again took control of the country after the withdrawal of allied troops.

According to the director, the drama expresses itself mainly about the situation of the women there. After the ultra-conservative Taliban returned to power, they are no longer allowed to go to school or hairdressers, are banned from most normal jobs, must cover their faces in public and are not allowed to walk alone in the park or travel long distances without a male escort.

“I would like people to forget everything they know about Afghanistan for a moment and just watch our film,” says the film’s director and lead actress Shahrbanoo Sadat. She left Afghanistan after the return of the Taliban to power and today lives in Hamburg.

According to experts, the program of this year’s Berlinale festival will take the audience further than where they look with a regular Hollywood production. Only about a third of the 22 competing titles feature familiar faces, for example actor Channing Tatum in the crime drama Josephine or Juliette Binoche in the family film about dementia Queen at Sea.

“This year, the festival has a really hard art program, which is full of politically important films, but you won’t find as many Hollywood stars,” says film journalist Scott Roxborough from The Hollywood Reporter magazine. According to him, the competition films are aimed at more demanding viewers than the general public.

Nevertheless, celebrities will also appear on the screen. Popular pop singer Charli XCX brings the movie The Moment. Pamela Anderson, known from the series Coast Guard, is acting alongside younger colleagues Ella Fanning and Callum Turner in a film called Rosebush Pruning. Viewers will also see the period drama The Weight with Russell Crowe and Ethan Hawke.

However, the organizers highlight above all the richness of the program, which has a wide spread and gives space to young talents.

For example, the drama Soumsoum, a night of stars, which takes place in Chad and tells the story of a seventeen-year-old girl with supernatural abilities, raises expectations. The film Moscas focuses on Olga, who, in financial need, rents out a room in her apartment to a strange man and befriends his nine-year-old son. The heroine of another film called A Quiet Voice returns from the French capital to Tunisia for her uncle’s funeral and meets her family again, who know nothing about her life in Paris.

This year, the Berlinale also has a partly Czech footprint. Outside the main competition section, three films shot in local co-production will be screened: the short animated film En, ten, tyky! Slovak director and animator Andrea Szelesová, as well as Roya by Iranian director Mahnáz Mohammadí and the documentary If Pigeons Turned into Gold, which Pepa Lubojacki is behind.

In the Classics section, the organizers have included the digitally restored Panelstory by director Věra Chytilová from 1979. The novel The Little Loss of Loneliness by writer Eli Beneš was selected for Books at Berlinale, which organizes the film festival together with the Frankfurt Book Fair. The aim of this program is to present books as possible models for film adaptation.

The mini-series Monyová by director Zuzana Kirchnerová, which was inspired by the fate of the writer Simona Monyová from Brno and which will premiere on the Oneplay platform, entered the list of Berlinale Series Market Selects series.

The Berlinale has existed since 1951. According to the organizers, last year’s edition was a record, they sold 336,000 tickets. In addition to the public, the event attracts professionals, this year approximately 12,000 accredited participants will arrive at the associated film market, where distribution rights are sold. Last year, the Norwegian drama Sny, directed by Dag Johan Haugerud, won the festival.