The Berlinale, aka the Berlin International Film Festival wrapped up two weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to write about it for days, but the traditional post-festival cold was the first reason for my delay, topped by a following massive one. In a disturbing turn of events (there is no milder word to use although I am not surprised), after its Award Ceremony the festival and its director went through an absurd, rough public argument regarding freedom of expression and the festival’s political profile, related (once again) to the German discourse around Palestine and Israel. I cannot summarise the matter thoroughly in a few sentences, but you can follow it in the industry press. I have to say it kept me, and many of us, refreshing news sites and social media comments while everything else took a back seat. But now, that the situation seems to have been defused to a certain degree, I am returning to the festival’s content: its films.

I am jumping straight in with Romanian cinema and its good year at the fest. Regular attendee Radu Jude teamed up once again with historian Adrian Cioflâncă and entered a short film. Plan contraplan/ Shot Reverse Shot uses archival photographic material (my favourite genre of Jude films) and explores both theories of seeing and footage of Jewish life in communist Romania. It sets against each other photos shot by US photographer Edward Serotta between 1985 and 1987 and the pics taken of him by the Securitate. It’s sharp, formally precise, and revelatory. Jude’s entry served as an incentive to dedicate more time to the Berlinale Shorts again – I neglected them a bit in recent years, sorry, Shorts! – and there were so many lovely discoveries: Marthe Peters’s tender meditation on fragility, closeness, wonder, and love of pets Henry Is a Girl Who Likes to Sleep; Jingkai Qu’s rigorous, terrifically assured study of a young boy in a cold environment in Di san xian/ Kleptomania; to Gaël Kamilindi’s deliriously sensual and thoughtful take on queer love and its representation in Taxi Moto.

Moving on to the two features that both focus on children and youth, a most welcome choice for varied reasons. Paul Negoescu’s Atlasul Universului/ Atlas of the Universe ran in Generation Kplus and fills a much-needed gap in Romanian filmmaking, namely films about and aimed at a young audience. The road movie set in rural, summery Romania is engaging and sunny, making great use of the landscape. Part of the Forum section, Tudor Cristian Jurgiu’s De capul nostru/ On Our Own also features young figures, but goes for acute, grave issues: growing up with absent parents. The drama fills another gap in the sense that it’s been such a pressing social problem that would benefit immensely from more engagement. There is much to admire here, from the thoughtful approach to sibling constellations, emotional and sexual coming-of-age to the inclusion of neurodiverse characters. What works less is a tone that remains a bit too sedate and the unequal cast, the younger actors being the more captivating to watch.

As for the many other titles I watched, there are so many I would like to compliment here but this a limited-spaced column, so I’ll just throw in what stuck with me most. In a bit of unfair competition (I know, I know), the Classics and Retrospective pics took the prize, as always, from Richard Linklater’s hilarious classic Slacker to Yury Khashevatsky, Ella Milova and Irina Pismennaja’s fantastic fresco of women in the former Soviet Union in Oranzhevye zhilety/ Orange Vests to Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujică’s brilliant analysis of the televised Romanian Revolution in Videogramme einer Revolution/ Videograms of a Revolution. Of the contemporary titles it was Angela Schanelec’s Meine Frau Weint/ My Wife Cries that delighted me most, it is a miracle how her spare, staged approach always moves me immensely; and James Benning doing what he does best: asking us to observe places and spaces in Eight Bridges. The documentary delivers exactly that: eight ten-minute static shots of eight bridges across the USA. Hypnotic at first glance, historically, politically and economically meaningful in context or upon repeated viewing. A Berlinale without James Benning would be a much poorer one.  

By Ioana Moldovan, film columnist: ioana.moldovan@romania-insider.com
Picture info & credit: image from Shot Reverse Shot, © Edward Serotta, courtesy of Berlinale.de