It is on!

As a grateful member of the alternative program "Perspektive deutsches Kino" jury, composed of 7 young French and/or German cineasts I am since yesterday roaming the (this time not so empty) large streets and cinemas of Berlin and having a quite different experience than the days passed in its direct concurrent city, Cannes.

"Allt är bättre i Berlin", so they say in Stockholm. While I prefer not to comment this statement I have to admit the Berlinale, just like Cannes to France, is a pretty good mirror of the German casual way of life foreigners admire: less glitter, no lamborghinis nor 10 Euro cokes and a cosy dresscode. Instead; an audience laughing at scenes not always meant to be funny, a red carpet drenched in snow and journalists putting there Variety in a LIDL-bag.

Unfortunately I won’t have the time to extensively write about the many movies I will get to see, as our jury debates and 15 minutes of fame attempts are filling up our schedules. I promise though to post about my chances of talking to the filmmakers of this year’s Berlinale; the website critic.de has been very kind to already arrange 2 interviews I’m more than looking forward to: Swedish documentary filmmaker Ruben Östlund and Belgian video artist Nicolas Provost! Both are best short film nominees with respectively "Handelse vid banken" and "Long live the new flesh".

This evening, between the screening of "Renn, wenn du kannst", the first feature of the Perspektive programm, and an interview for Arte, I saw an audience of 200 watching the remasterised and prolonged version of Lang’s Metropolis. Open air, projected on the Brandenburger Tor and accompanied live by the Berlin philarmonic orchestra; we shivered, but rather for the poetry of the moment than because of the cold.

Thanks for reading and check back again soon! M

The magic Metropolis screening at the Brandenburger Tor.
Two members of our jury.
A performer from Quebec we met in a gallery. His explicit show had it all in the title: "Disco salope"