Berlinale 2024 Wrap Up in a Nut Shell
Decolonization from Africa to Gaza, if not Latin America, was the overall though unofficial theme of this year’s Berlinale. The power of the theme and the political nature of the Berlinale itself were strong enough to overshadow the other films which on the whole were weak.
Dahomey, the Golden Bear Winner for Best Film, a France / Senegal / Benin documentary directed by Mati Diop and produced by Eve Robin, Judith Lou Lévy and Mati Diop, is about returning looted African artifacts. Twenty-six objects out of 7,000 looted by the French from its former colony are the subject of much discussion when they arrive in the Republic of Benin.
In 1904, the area became part of a French colony, French Dahomey. In 1958, French Dahomey became the self-governing colony called the Republic of Dahomey and gained full independence in 1960. It was renamed in 1975 the People’s Republic of Benin and in 1991 the Republic of Benin.
Did the French return the items out of altruism or to build a Macron Brand of Goodness; was it an insult (26 out of 7,000 objects stolen) or a bridge to further recompense (and when? At a rate of 26 a year most Beninese will not live to see them)?
Dahomey features very well articulated and engaging discussions among the Beninese covering all aspects of what the items’ return means, emotionally, legally, and culturally in terms of colonialism, post-colonialism and morality. The fact is, not only were these religious and secular artifacts lost along with their inner soul-felt significance, but the indigenous language itself was lost so that even to explain the country’s own history and culture must be done in a “foreign”, that is French, language. But culture remains native-born in music, stories, and contemporary arts. However, how much deeper could African culture have penetrated the consciousness of its citizens had they grown up knowing their cultural symbols and designs. This is poetically expounded upon in the unfortunately artificial Hal-like voice of Number 26, the statue of a former King of Dahomey who was not named, only labeled №26, even though his name was known.
I especially loved the discussion by the young Africans, to see their beauty and hear them articulate every possible angle on this huge event. The film was well-made and very interesting but is only 67 minutes long. I would not judge it as one of the best documentaries I have ever seen, nor was the Golden Bear winning documentary On the Adamant last year. However, both are important, that cannot be denied. Regarding rights, MUBI holds rights in USA, UK and Ireland, Austria and Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Latin America, Benelux, Turkey, India, and streaming rights for the rest of the world. ISA Films du Losange holds the rest of the international rights as well as French distribution rights. Filmin has Spain.
The same subject of looted objects was echoed by the Germany/ Tanzania coproduction The Empty Grave, a 97 minute documentary, which unfortunately is too long for its message about John Mbano and Cesilia Mollel who are on a mission to bring the stolen remains of their beloved ancestors back home to Tanzania from Germany where they are kept in museums. A story is a similar post-colonial tale about the power of institutions, generational trauma and resilience.
Mea culpa, I did not see as many movies as I had wanted. My main duties at the Berlinale which kept me very busy was my work with two groups. One is Plus One, a London-based film education and consultancy company founded by two young Chinese women, film and TV producer Zixi Chang and film curator Millie Zhou, who live and work in Beijing and London respectively. Since 2017 it has been engaging Chinese talents with the international film industry and facilitating creative collaboration. Going on our fourth year of working with Chinese filmmakers and curators from China and from the diaspora, we spend five days learning, teaching, pitching and watching films in Berlin and Cannes.
The other was new this year: Nordic Film Music Days for the first time was an official part of the European Film Market. It was a great and successful event about recognizing the value of music in film as a marketable commodity.
I also lightly hosted the benefactor of the Florida State University Film School, Jim Taylor.
Because of my work with Plus One, I was especially thrilled by the number of Chinese winners. Nine films played in the festival. Winning the Special Jury Award (shared with Khamyazeye bozorg /The Great Yawn of History by Aliyar Rasti) was Kong fang jian li de nv ren/ Some Rain Must Fall by Qiu Yang. The Silver Bear Jury Prize for Best Short went to Re tian wu hou /Remains of the Hot Day by Wenqian Zhang; The Special Prize of the International Jury for The Best Short Film, endowed with €2,500 by Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk went to A Summer’s End Poem /Sommer, Ende by Lam Can-zhao; Generation 14 Plus Special Mention went to Kai Shi De Qiang/ She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones by Qu Youjia; The Teddy Award for Best Film went to All Shall Be Well by Ray Yeung
I loved The Teddy Award Winner for Best Film, All Shall Be Well directed by Ray Yeung and produced by former Fortissimo partner Michael J Werner. Having a young gay filmmaker finding his voice as he makes such a warm loving film about a lesbian couple, together for over four decades was a surprise to me as I had heard that the two genders do not ordinarily cross over into one another’s territory. But he did with great success.
I also especially loved Brief History of a Family/ Jia ting jian shi, a People’s Republic of China / France / Denmark / Qatar coproduction repped by ISA Films Boutique (my favorite brand). I would put this thriller of a film about a middle-class family’s fate becoming intertwined with their only son’s enigmatic new friend in post-one-child policy China on my favorites list. Another of my favorites was the enjoyable and very French comedy, Auction/ Le tableau volé again about looted art (this time by the Germans from the Jews) ISA: Pyramide.
On the subject of language
The Talents was based upon language this year.
But, on the subject of languages, a criticism I have is that when reading catalog descriptions to choose the films I want to see, it would be much better if the English titles were juxtaposed next to the non-English language titles. Potential audiences are lost when only a transliterated Chinese title (or any non-English title ) with no English translation is listed. Who can guess what Kong fang jian li de nv ren or Jia ting jian shi means, especially online while trying to get tickets. Although English is still the international language, one begins to doubt it here in Berlin…
The award ceremony had a new MC this year who did not always give a bilingual spiel, which left those in the audience who chose not to get the monotone translating earphones in the dark about what was being said. Luckily, in an improvement from last year, the film titles and names of winners and the categories being awarded were posted large and bilingually on the large onstage screen so you could keep up with the action.
When the Spanish language winner of the Silver Bear for Best Director, Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias for Pepe about one the hippopatamuses introduced to Colombia by Pablo Escobar gave his thank yous, he firsst announced he would do it in Spanish as there would be an onstage translation, and there was. However, he was the only one with that. The French also decided only to speak French and there was no translator. All the other winners spoke English.
You can read ALL THE PRIZES awarded here.
Direct Action (Germany / France) by Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell won as Best Film of the Encounters Section. It was 216 minutes which makes up for the shortness of Dahomey! Direct action is a tactical strategy of protest that seeks to achieve an end directly and by the most effective means. One of the highest-profile militant activist communities in France, a 150-person strong rural collective successfully resisted an international airport expansion project in 2018, created an autonomous zone between 2012 and 2018, survived multiple violent eviction attempts by the French state and spawned a new ecological movement in 2021. The everyday lives of this diverse ecosystem of activists, squatters, anarchists, farmers and those labelled by the government as “eco-terrorists” is the subject of this winning film.
I thought the Russells’ outfit noteworthy if not naive as a show of solidarity with Palestine whereas when No Other Land the debut feature by another collective including Israelis and Palestinians, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor, a coproduction of Palestine / Norway won both the Juried Documentary Award and the Audience Award in Panorama — amply deserved honors “for its adroit, affecting and infuriating portrayal of a tight-knit Palestinian community resisting Israel’s relentless campaign of expulsion showing the destruction of the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta by Israeli authorities”, the unlikely friendship that developed between the Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham resulted in them sharing the acceptance speech which then came under attack because Abraham’s words calling for “equality between Israelis and Palestinians” were considered by some as “Antisemitic”.
Thus a political backlash was rekindled this last night which echoed the opening night debacle in which elected officials, members of the extreme far right AfD party were officially disinvited.
The speeches of Abraham and Adra were criticized by the Mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegner. On X (formerly Twitter) he wrote:
What happened yesterday at the Berlinale was an unacceptable relativization. There is no place for antisemitism in Berlin, and that also applies to the arts.
Relativization? What does that mean? To quote my friend, Jewish like me, 93 year old film critic Alex Deleon who has seen alot in his day but nothing like this:
Cockameyni Word Jazz ….Whutta Mess! What B S…Berlin lived up to its reputation of being the Most Political of all film festivals … in a sickeningly twisted way.
For a political film festival like the Berlinale, the backlash against it was surprising. You can read more in its press release here.
In turn the Israeli Filmmaker, Yuval Abraham, slammed the German politicians for branding the Berlin Award Acceptance Speech “Antisemitic”.
A right-wing Israeli mob came to my family’s home yesterday to search for me, threatening close family members who fled to another town in the middle of the night. I am still getting death threats and had to cancel my flight home.
This happened after Israeli media and German politicians absurdly labeled my Berlinale award speech — where I called for equality between Israelis and Palestinians, a ceasefire and an end to apartheid — as ‘antisemitic’.
The appalling misuse of this word by Germans, not only to silence Palestinian critics of Israel, but also to silence Israelis like me who support a ceasefire that will end the killing in Gaza and allow the release of the Israeli hostages — empties the word antisemitism of meaning and thus endangers Jews all over the world. As my grandmother was born in a concentration camp in Libya and most of my grandfather’s family was murdered by Germans in the holocaust, I find it particularly outraging that German politicians in 2024 have the audacity to weaponize this term against me in a way that endangered my family. But above all else, this behavior puts Palestinian co-director Basel Adra’s life in danger, who lives under a military occupation surrounded by violent settlements in Masafer Yatta. He is in far greater danger than I am. I’m happy our award winning film, No Other Land, is sparking an important international debate on this issue — and I hope that millions of people watch it when it comes out this year. Sparking a conversation is why we made it. You can have harsh criticism of what me and Basel said on stage without demonizing us. If this is what you’re doing with your guilt for the holocaust — I don’t want your guilt.
Co-directed by an Israeli-Palestinian collective of four, No Other Land was filmed in the West Bank, in Masafer Yatta, where Israeli military and increasingly civilians have forced Palestinians out from their villages. The collective consists of two Israelis, two Palestinians. Other than Yuval and Basel, there is Hamdan [Ballal] who is a bit older, in his mid-30s and a photographer for many years; and Rachel Szor, who is also the cinematographer. There were three kinds of cameras in the film: Basel’s archive, which is all the community’s archives filmed over the past 20 years by the people in Masafer Yatta, or by activists who were there 20 years ago. Much of archive material comes from Basel’s childhood, which allowed us to go back to his memories in the film. Then there is the handheld footage, which is filming the current violence of the occupation. This is more Basel’s point of view. Then you have Rachel’s camera, a Lumix GH5, 4K. This was in more of a classic fly-on-the-wall style, filming Basel and Yuval’s conversations.
Read the entire interview with Yuval Abraham in Filmmaker Magazine: “There is No Nice Way to Bulldoze a School”here.
The film’s excellence and the courage required to make it are worth underlining amid the fractious politics of this year’s Berlinale, which was lambasted for policing speech about the very issues addressed so cogently by a film the festival programmed and honored. (The latest news at press time was a bizarre clarification from the German Ministry of Culture that the Culture Minister’s applause at the prize ceremony was intended only for the Israeli member of the No Other Land filmmaking team, i.e., Abraham, and not Adra... when I interviewed Adra and Abraham in a lounge tucked away in the Palast, it was barely midway through the festival, and they were only two screenings into a festival edition that would be defined by the strength of its nonfiction selection — perhaps none quite so urgent and on point as No Other Land — Filmmkaker Magazine Interview by Nicolas Rapold
Again to quote the wit and critic Alex Deleon, on Israel, whose voice speaks for me as well:
As I see it the Israelis suffer from Post Holocaust Hysteria…. so they inflict it on the Palestinians. A terrible mess any way. you look at it. A Mentally ILL country. A nation divided against itself … Schizzophrenifried! A No-Win situation — — out of which they need to get ….ASAP.
Oh well, next year will be a whole new ballgame as all the principals of this year’s festival will be gone and replaced by one Tricia Tuttle of UK, Head of Fiction at the National Film and Televison School, Watershed Board and Deputy Director and former Director of Festivals at BFI.
