Berlinale. Preview.

As he swooped into a press conference on Tuesday morning where a couple of hundred journalists were already anxiously leafing through the book-thick press release announcing the titles of all 343 films to be screened at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, all the names of all the members of all the juries, all the stats, cross-collated in all the nifty ways databases make possible, festival director Dieter Kosslick was, naturally, wearing a red scarf. As with Berlin's former mayor, Social Democrat Walter Momper, it's practically a trademark. But Kosslick was also sporting the most photogenic of recent additions to the Berlinale lineup: a t-shirt.

Yes, the Berlinale is making its first forays into merchandizing. Baby steps, actually. You'll be able to buy the shirt; there's also a mug and, for the kids, a teddy bear. Wearing the shirt.

It's an appropriately symbolic move, in a way. Because even though you can say of the Berlinale that it really is all about the films more emphatically than you can say that of a few other festivals, there's one story here that simply yells, "Lede!": The European Film Market is exploding. Anthony Kaufman had a good piece on this in indieWIRE a couple of weeks ago, but in short, now that the American Film Market has shifted to November from February, all winter festivals, and especially the Berlinale, are seeing a boost in market activity. Berlin's stats (referring to my book-thick release): 165 companies are represented this year, an increase of 38 percent over last year, peddling 530 films, an increase of 33 percent over 2004.

More on the films and other festival highlights after the jump.

One more note about the EFM, though. Because it's growing exponentially, it needs new digs. 2005 will be, as EFM director Beki Probst put it, a "year of transition," but by 2006, the dealmaking will carry on in what Kosslick quite rightly calls one of Germany's most aesthetically intriguing buildings, the Martin-Gropius-Bau.

As it happens, the venue is currently hosting the Stanley Kubrick exhibition (through April 11) and Kubrick will be a considerable presence (so to speak) at this year's Berlinale. The Retrospective this year - "Settings - Locations - Scenes. Production Design & Film" - will feature a good handful of Kubrick's works; Ken Adam, who designed Barry Lyndon and Dr Strangelove, will be interviewed live on stage on Valentine's Day and, on Wednesday, February 16, Kubrick's widow, Christiane, and her brother, Jan Harlan will be interviewed under the rubric, "Stanley Kubrick: Creating a World." Retrospective highlights are many this year, but I've got to mention the restored versions of Battleship Potemkin and Fritz Lang's Spione; naturally, there'll be live discussions related to these as well.

Stars will be out in force, all up and down the red carpet, of course, but among those giving lectures and on-stage interviews and such will be Walter Salles ("Composer and Director: Exploring the Collaboration"), Ridley Scott ("Designing Your Future"), Christopher Doyle ("Painting with the Camera" and "The Eternal Triangle" [which is production design, cinematography and costume design]) and Catherine Breillat ("Directing Sex"). Im Kwon-Taek will be receiving an Honorary Golden Bear (along with Fernando Fernán Gómez and Daniel Day-Lewis) and let's hope he'll have a few words as well.

Now then, the films. The main thing to be said for those who'll be able to make it is that it's easier this year than ever to sort out a schedule (and even book tickets) online, thanks to the new "Programme Search" service, but for those who're simply curious have time for nothing more than a glance, once again: The Competition (here and here), the Forum, Panorama, the Perspektive Deutsches Kino, Kinderfilmfest and Part II of the Selling Democracy series. Also noteworthy: Competition entry Paradise Now was co-financed by the Berlinale's World Cinema Fund.

Meanwhile, outside, employees of the German theater chain Cinemaxx very smartly took advantage of the opportunity of a gathering of a couple of hundred journalists to stage a modest protest. The issue at hand, in brief: There was a boom in movie theater-building a few years ago in all of Germany, but particularly in Berlin. Result: Too many theaters. Now the chains are battling it out and they're resorting to the methods most corporations resort to: cut personnel costs first.

So Cinemaxx employees are now earning 1098 euros/month, 25 percent below what economists deem poverty wages. Not only is Dieter Kosslick one of the most charming and entertaining festival directors you're likely to meet, his heart is in the right place as well. He made a point of stating in the conference that the Berlinale - which screens many of its films in the Cinemaxx on Potsdamer Platz - fully supports the employees' protests.

Posted by dwhudson at February 2, 2005 9:26 AM