Every year in cinema calendars February belongs to the Berlin International Film Festival, and this year it will be extra special, as the upcoming edition marks the last one with Carlo Chatrian as Artistic Director.
While you’ll have to wait a bit longer for my take on this year’s super, ultra, phenomenally fab Berlinale Jury President Lupita Nyong'o, following are a few announcements that have come this week from Berlin.
First among these, the festival has decided on the successor to Carlo Chatrian, who took over the leadership of the festival along with Mariëtte Rissenbeek in 2019. Chaired by the Minister of State for Culture and the Media, Claudia Roth, on Tuesday the Board of Supervisors of the Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin GmbH (KBB) approved the selection committee's proposal to appoint Tricia Tuttle as director of the Berlin International Film Festival from April 2024.
Tuttle comes from having directed the BFI London Film Festival for five years and is currently Head of Directing Fiction at the UK’s prestigious National Film and TV School.
She holds a Masters in Film Studies from the British Film Institute and Birkbeck University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Radio, Television and Motion Pictures from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Tricia Tuttle will take over the directorship from 1 April 2024. The upcoming Berlinale 2024 will take place under the direction of Carlo Chatrian and Mariëtte Rissenbeek.
Also, the Berlinale announced venues for the upcoming 2024 edition, which will take place from February 15-25, around Berlin. The galas, red carpets and a lot of the press and industry screenings will continue to take place at the Berlinale Palast. Some of the additional venues include Verti Music Hall in Mercedes-Platz, the Zoo Palast near the Berlin Zoological Garden, Silent Green in the silent green Kulturquartier, which has an eerie feeling if you ask me. But also previously used venues like the Cubix and CinemaxX. Check out the press release about the venues here.
These cinemas, sprinkled all around Berlin, provide a festival experience for Berliners, which is where the heart and soul of the Berlinale really finds itself. This is a festival by Berlin, with Berlin and for Berlin. We are all just welcomed guests.
The Forum has also announced the first films of their 54th edition, which fall under the theme of “Women, Communes, Generations.” Among the titles, selected by new Forum head Barbara Wurm, and her committee of consultants and film programmers, are films from India, Algeria and Argentina, as well as Eastern Europe.
Standouts include Argentinian director Lola Arias’s prison musical Reas (pictured in the header above). It features a collective made up of both cis- and trans*- people as they process their individual experiences by way of re-enactment. And Republic, a punky production from Singapore and China that takes a look at the Beijing underground.
To keep updated with all, check out the Berlinale website here. And below, find a list of all the announced titles so far.
Chroniques fidèles survenues au siècle dernier à l’hôpital psychiatrique Blida-Joinville, au temps où le Docteur Frantz Fanon était chef de la cinquième division entre 1953 et 1956 (True Chronicles of the Blida Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in the Last Century, when Dr Frantz Fanon Was Head of the Fifth Ward between 1953 and 1956) by Abdenour Zahzah | with Alexandre Desane, Gérard Dubouche, Nicolas Dromard, Omar Boulakirba, Amal Kaleb Algeria / France 2024 Forum | World premiere
Frantz Fanon is a renowned politician and decolonialisation activist. This feature focuses on his visionary social therapy methods during his time as a psychiatrist in Algeria from 1953 to 1956. A piece of sober anti-racism.
Deda-Shvili (Mother and Daughter) by Lana Gogoberidze Georgia / France 2023 Forum Special | International premiere | Documentary Form
Greatness paired with modesty: 93 years old and a daughter, world-famous director Lana remembers her mother Nutsa, Georgia’s first female filmmaker. A cinema legacy that revolves around being human in dark times: feminist, loving, critical of violence.
La hojarasca (The Undergrowth) by Macu Machín | with Carmen Machín, Elsa Machín, Maura Pérez Spain 2024 Forum | World premiere | Documentary Form | Debut film
Three sisters on the Canary Islands, their everyday lives infused with a magical, meditative lyricism. Three life strategies without a breadwinner, narrated via the body, a mix of staging, observation and memory. Before the volcano, serenity arrives.
Kottukkaali (The Adamant Girl) by Vinothraj PS | with Soori Muthuchamy, Anna Ben India 2024 Forum | World premiere
Meena stubbornly refuses to speak. She loves a man from a lower caste. Her family thinks she is possessed and the spell is cast out of her. The day begins, a road movie starts, as religious fervour and insane misogyny are narrated in passing.
Marijas klusums (Maria's Silence) by Dāvis Sīmanis | with Olga Šepicka, Artūrs Skrastiņš, Vilis Daudziņš, Ģirts Ķesteris, Inese Kučinska Latvia / Lithuania 2024 Forum | World premiere
In 1937, the Moscow art scene is in free-floating accord with Soviet power. Latvian artist Maria Leiko believes she is untouchable and unwittingly plays the role of her life: that of an innocent victim. A hugely topical historical allegory.
Mit einem Tiger schlafen (Sleeping with a Tiger) by Anja Salomonowitz | with Birgit Minichmayr, Lukas Watzl, Oskar Haag, Johanna Orsini Austria 2024 Forum | World premiere
Birgit Minichmayr plays avant-garde painter Maria Lassnig at all ages and in all mental states, giving access to internal and external perspectives alike in radical fashion. An unconventional biopic of a female artist in the midst of a man’s world.
Reas by Lola Arias | with Yoseli Arias, Ignacio Amador Rodriguez Argentina / Germany / Switzerland 2024 Forum | World premiere | Documentary Form
Gentle or rough, blonde or shaved, cis or trans, long term inmates or those newly admitted: women re-enact their lives in a Buenos Aires prison, in trance and balance, voguing and singing. A hybrid musical and charming piece of collective empowerment.
Republic by Jin Jiang | with Li Eryang, Li, Bai, Jiaojiao, VT Singapore / People’s Republic of China 2023 Forum | European premiere | Documentary Form
Eryang has turned his Beijing cave into a private micro-club with fine music and a mezzanine bed for love. No space at all, but lots of time to kill, with passion and psychedelics. They drink and ponder money, Communism and the cosmos.
All images courtesy of the Berlinale, used with permission.