Happy Birthday Berlinale! This year, the festival is celebrating its 75th and is shining in festive splendour. Under the new direction of Tricia Tuttle, you can look forward to a new competition, the Perspectives, to ten days full of great films - and to the great feeling of watching a film together, sharing in the excitement, laughing, crying and being carried away by gripping stories.
Have fun at the festival!
The opening gala
A red carpet at last, a festive gala, stars and fans, hustle and bustle at Potsdamer Platz: Despite the onset of winter, the Berlinale Palast was transformed into a magical place as the lights shone around the red carpet.
German and international stars such as Honorary Golden Bear winner Tilda Swinton, jury president Todd Haynes, Fatih Akin, Meret Becker, Leonie Benesch, Iris Berben, Elyas M'Barek, Heike Makatsch, Ruby O. Fee, Albrecht Schuch, Emilia Schüle, Jannik Schümann, Matthias Schweighöfer and many more walked the red carpet and basked in the lightning storm.
The stars of the opening film The Light, including Lars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz, also came to present their film to the audience.
The opening film "Das Licht"
It's raining in Berlin, a constant downpour is pouring over the city and soaking everyone. And it introduces the motif of water, which unfolds its full meaning at the end of this almost three-hour film. There are many motifs in this film, including the eponymous light, as well as themes. Abortion, colonialism, the climate crisis, flight, dysfunctional family dynamics and much more is told or at least touched upon. And so the film is overloaded with themes and ideas that are told very clearly on the one hand but leave many questions unanswered on the other.
And there are also a few musical scenes ...
In the Family Engels (the name is no coincidence either), the parents (Lars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz) and their children live more side by side than together in a cave-like, crammed flat in an old building. Milena Engels travels back and forth between Berlin and Kenya, where she is in charge of a theatre project. Otherwise she is always on her mobile phone to secure her funding. Tim Engels works as an advertiser and avoids any confrontation. The almost grown-up twins are either playing VR games or out and about in Berlin's nightlife, while Milena's illegitimate young son Dio escapes into music. It is only when housekeeper Farrah (Tala Al-Deen), who has fled to Germany from Syria, joins them that family life changes.
She makes the family face their fears, talk about what they have kept secret and formulate their wishes. But Farrah is also keeping a secret.
The film is a wild mishmash with charming sequences and atmospheric images, but they don't come together to form a harmonious whole. It tries to do too much and ends up doing too little.
Tip: Pay attention to the first scene - it already gives a lot away.
Outlook for the festival Friday
Today it's star alert on the red carpet again: Timothée Chalamet is coming to Berlin to show his latest film A Complete Unknown, for which he has been nominated for an Oscar.
In addition, the competition will start with the Chinese fiction film Sheng xi zhi di, a family saga spanning several generations, and the novel adaptation Hot Milk with Emma Mackey, Fiona Shaw, Vicky Krieps and Vincent Perez. The new film Peter Hujar's Diary by Ira Sachs with Ben Wishaw and Rebecca Hall is also eagerly awaited and will be screened at the Zoo Palast in the evening. The film A natureza das coisas invisíveis opens Generation Kplus in the afternoon, followed by the Irish film Christy in Generation14plus.
So it promises to be a colourful bouquet of themes, emotions and styles.
You can look forward to seeing what the first day brings.
