Berlinale. Preview.

The annual end-of-January press conference previewing the full program of onscreen and offscreen Berlinale festivities, in full swing this year from February 9 through 19, was a bit jazzier this year. They went for a talk show format, moderated by an actual TV personality from ZDF, one of the festival's primary sponsors, and sat the programmers down in a line of swiveling orange lounge chairs.

Click to enlarge.

While the moderator joked about keeping the proceedings on schedule (that's him, glancing at his watch), the star of the show, hands down, this year as in every year, was Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick (to the moderator's left, our right). Kosslick's charm offensive can sometimes come off as precisely that, a means of warding off critique, but no, today, he was just plain damn funny, as when he related that one of the supreme benefits of his job are the private talks with the likes of George Clooney, whom he told, "You look good," and who replied, "So do you." In such special moments, Kosslick noted wryly, you know you're making a difference in the world.

But seriously, folks. Our press books span over a hundred-plus dense pages, far too much info to relate even just the highlights of here, but the gist is this: Once again, I wish I could live through those upcoming ten days at least three or four times, once for the Competition, once for the Forum, once for the Panorama and once again to catch a variety of events all over town, some of them associated with other sections or the Talent Campus. For example, Peter Kubelka will be delivering his lecture, "The Edible Metaphor," on Sunday afternoon (February 14); Wim Wenders, Tom Tykwer, Agnieszka Holland and Andres Veiel will be talking about Kieslowski the following Wednesday morning; Peter Cowie will be interviewing International Jury prez Charlotte Rampling on Thursday, and so on and so on.

A couple of final quick notes: The European Film Market is still exploding, now larger by a third over what it was last year; and all up and down that line of orange chairs, you heard the conviction echoed over and again that something very good is going on in the German film scene, something that not only most of the rest of the world but also even most German moveigoers haven't caught onto yet. And these programmers will be doing their darnedest to rectify that situation.

Posted by dwhudson at January 30, 2006 6:37 AM