Universal Cinema Film & TV Journal’s Amir Ganjavie interviewed Albert Wiederspiel of the Filmfest Hamburg. Their conversation touches on boycotts and bringing in a younger generation of filmgoers.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Can you introduce yourself and tell me about your role in your organization?
Albert Wiederspiel (AW): Yes. My name is Albert Wiederspiel. I have been running Filmfest Hamburg since 2003. The festival has been going on since 1991. I didn’t create it. I’m the director of the festival. A double function, I’m the administrative director but at the same time also the artistic director. But I do have a program director, she’s much more in charge of the content. She’s been here longer than I have. This is my 21st edition this year and it’s also my last edition because I have decided to retire. After 21 years, I think it’s time to pass it onto the next generation.
(UM): Can you tell me a little bit about what makes Filmfest Hamburg different from other film festivals? How are you trying to differentiate the festival?
(AW): First of all, Germany is a big country, which is good because not every festival has to be so different. I need to be different from other festivals in Hamburg. I don’t need to be different from the festival in Munich or Cologne. There is little interaction between the cities in Germany. The Hamburg audience stays in Hamburg and the Munich audience stays in Munich. I guess it’s a bit like in Canada, nobody from Vancouver is going to come to a festival in Toronto, I guess. So we don’t have to be this different, and at the end of the day, somehow every festival has its own profile. As a festival, it’s all about showing good films, and it’s all about showing films which normally the audience cannot find in cinemas.
In my opinion, the problem in Germany is that there are more and more films being shot in the world, so they are making this enormous?????. And at the end of the day, the everyday programming of a normal cinema program in town is not this diverse. In Germany, we still see American films, then they see German films, and then from time to time there is a French film coming up in the cinemas and that’s it. If Almodovar doesn’t make a film in one year, there is no Spanish film in the cinemas at all. So, the normal cinema program is not as colorful as the filmmaking in the world. So I think this is one of the roles I see for Filmfest Hamburg is to bring this big and very rich film world into Hamburg.
(UM): I see that sometimes even the big names that get awards at the Berlinale don’t get distribution in Germany.
(AW): Germany, nowadays, is not a very strong art house market. Since COVID, they haven’t recovered yet. We’re not back yet to the pre-COVID figures. But even before COVID, we are not as strong in the art house as let’s say France. France is a very typical art house market, the winner of the big festival will always break through the French market. This is not the case here. You are totally right. Sometimes not even the winner of the Berlinale gets distributed.
(UM): Do you have any definition of a good movie?
(AW): Not really. It’s always been whatever Kathrin Kohlstedde, who is our head of programming, and I like. When you do a film festival for so many years, the audience gets used to your handwriting. So it has to correspond to Kathrin’s and my handwriting. We are a very successful festival from an audience point of view. And one of the reasons is that people are longing for curated programs. They want somebody like Kathrin and like me to pick good things for them. They got used to us picking and we have to stay in this frame. It’s all about our gut feeling, it’s all about what we like, what we think is so interesting.
(UM): You also at the same time mentioned the issue of diversity.
(AW): But I only meant diversity in terms of the richness of countries where the films come from. I don’t want to make a festival just with American, German and French films, because there is no point to that. It’s much more important to show the Iranians, because if not, they do not take place in the cinema today. The Latin Americans don’t take the place. Asians are very under-represented in cinemas. So for me, it’s very important to show all those regions which are under-represented in everyday cinema life. This is what I meant.
(UM): I talked with a programmer, he told me sometimes I don’t have expertise on music documentaries or documentaries on LGBT issues. Do you have programmers who specialize in certain areas?
(AW): Yes. I have a programmer for Latin America. I have to admit that for me it’s very difficult to get access to Latin American films, because I don’t speak Spanish. And Latin America is a whole Spanish-speaking world. It’s more than a country. It’s like there is a continent out there. And so we do have a programmer, he lives in Argentina and consults with us. But at the end of the day, he is the programmer of everything which is Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American. I don’t pretend to be an expert on everything. It’s good to have people around you who can give you advice. Whoever told you this, he’s right. That’s the way it is, and we all should be listening to people. We all should have whisperers.
(UM): If a movie is being recommended to you by a distributor, will you take it more seriously compared to a movie that has no distributor affiliated? I heard this from a film director that if the movie has a distributor it will have a better chance of getting into the festival.
(AW): No. Our task is to show films. Films with a local distributor will find its way with or without us.. The distributors very often have the bigger films, the commercially bigger films. And we need some of those because every festival does. The more commercial films are the ones that “schlep” the other films behind them. So you need a couple of bigger commercial films, and for that, you need films with a German distributor. But generally speaking, I see our task is more to show films that do not have a distributor.
(UM): How you’re dealing with the fact that right now you’re receiving too many films, because of democratization. Some of the programmers told me that they have to watch 4 or 5 movies per day.
(AW): This is the case. The moment you ask people to apply you get flooded. We get 800 titles or something. I don’t even know. And yeah, we have programmers who sit in and they have to watch a lot. Let’s be honest, you don’t watch everything to the very end. If after 15 minutes you see that it’s really not worth continuing, you stop. But we do insist on at least having a look at every film. I think that’s an obligation we have to the filmmakers who send their films. But you’re right. This is the secondary effects of the democratization of film-making.
The programming team has a couple of people who we can ask to pre-watch for us a little bit. Sort the first films away. We employe some students, we have some people we’ve been working with over many years.
(UM): One of the challenges of big film festivals is the venue. Some of them are struggling to find venues close to each other or to secure venues. How is your relationship with the venue? Is it a problem for your festival?
(AW): Well, we’re lucky we have a festival which is held in the downtown area of Hamburg. Practically all the cinemas are in walking distance. This is what I have learned over the years: once you scatter a festival over the whole city, or over too big an area, you kill it.
(UM): And in terms of quota, do you have any European quota imposed by the European Commission or do you have a German quota?
(AW):. This is one of the reasons why I don’t take money from the European Commission because then you’ll have a quota. And I don’t want to make a program according to quotas. I think it’s horrendously boring. I know they used to ask you for it so we got 60% European programming which is very tough. That means you have to throw away a lot of the Middle East, you have to throw away a lot of Asia.
(UM): And no quota in terms of race or gender I imagine?
(AW): No quota for race and gender. There is a very big increase in female filmmakers but that’s everywhere. It’s funny because when I started 21 years ago, one was happy if we had 10% female filmmakers. And now it is practically at 50%. It’s 50-50 now. It has slowly turned into a female profession, which is a huge change over a very brief part of the time. But we don’t have a quota for that either.
(UM): I read an article that says European film festivals are more open to, for example, Polanski or Woody Allen. But not in America. So I’m just curious if Woody Allen or Polanski or other controversial filmmakers submitted films, would you consider them?
(AW): I would definitely consider them. I think both are very important filmmakers. If I agree with the sexual behavior or not, that’s another topic, but I would definitely consider them. I have to admit I would not reject a film just because it was made by Polanski or by Woody Allen.
We’re showing the Ukrainian national program. And we’ve decided we’re not boycotting Russian films but we do not show any Russian film which has been state funded. And unfortunately, most Russian films are funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Republic. It means that practically we don’t have anything to show from Russia.
(UM): You mentioned that you also have a good relationship with Iranian Cinema. In terms of Iranian films, do you have the same criteria, or do you check who is funding the films or who is behind the movies?
(AW): We’re checking very carefully who is behind the films, who is financing the films. At least since ’22, we do not show anything which is Iranian-official.
Interviewer: And you mentioned that there is a huge problem in Germany in terms of art house cinema. Do you offer any educational programs or educational events, to make people, or kids, interested in art house?
This is one of the reasons why I insist on having a section for children and teenagers. Because we have to educate the audience of tomorrow. It’s something which has been neglected in Germany for many years, but now I think they now finally see the necessity of it also.
(UM): And in terms of when you’re picking a movie do you invite filmmakers to come to your festival?
(AW): Yes.We invite almost every filmmaker to come. It has become a problem with Asians and Latin Americans because the flight tickets have become tremendously expensive. The flight prices are not what they used to be before COVID. It’s something we all have to have to reconsider because in terms of sustainability, one has to think, do you invite the director from Argentina to come over for half an hour of the Q&A? Big question. I don’t have an answer to this. Because on one side, from a sustainability point of view, it sucks. On the other side, a festival without guests sucks as well. So it’s a question to find the balance, but I think we are in the transition period, in the next couple of years this will settle down.
(UM): I see that inflation is right now a major issue in Europe and all over the world. And I see that the price of hotels is skyrocketing. What’s the impact on your festival? How do you attract funding to address this inflation?
(AW): Unfortunately, the city funding has not gone up. We are financed by the city and city funding has not gone up. So the inflation, at least this year, we have to catch it through the sponsoring, through private sponsors. We are in negotiation with the Ministry of Culture of Hamburg about next year’s funding, because as you say, the inflation figures are high. Travel costs have gone up tremendously – also for European flights. It’s night and day to what it used to be. So we’re negotiating with the ministry as to funding for next year because with this funding it’s going to be very difficult in 2024.
(UM): Did COVID in any way change the structure of your festival? Some festivals right now are hybrid for example.
(AW): We did hybrid during COVID, and I have to be honest, I hated it. I hated hybrid. For me an online festival is a contradiction in terms. We do festivals for people to come together in the cinema and meet filmmakers. We did hybrid out of necessity. It’s not something we wanted to keep.
(UM): One of the fundamental changes in recent years is the increase of streamers. Some of them are not even interested in festivals.
(AW): You are right. They are not really interested in festivals at all I would say, or very little. But I think the peak of the success of the streamers is over. I see it is going down. I also know that Netflix is complaining a lot about their figures. They had an enormous increase during COVID, of course. And they thought that the increase could continue but it didn’t. So I think the peak of streaming success is over. And I do believe that people will come back to the cinemas at the end of the day. Cinema has always survived. We survived television, we survived video. I somehow have the impression that we’re going to survive this one as well.
(UM): But do you right now see any decrease in the number of people attending your festival after COVID?
(AW): Not at all, zero. The cinemas have decreased. The festivals have not . As I was saying before, people are really looking for curated programming. The moment you curate, the moment you offer them more than just a screening, the moment you offer them more conversation, a discussion, a panel then the audience is there.. If you just offer them a film with nothing around it, that is not attractive enough,
Interviewer: In terms of getting the big names, for example, I see that last year you premiered a German movie by Fatih Akin which is a big name. What are the strategies you are using?
We are not very well financed. So my possibilities are limited. And I’m not crying for the big stars to come because honestly, I can’t afford it. And I am also in the lucky position that the Hamburg audience doesn’t really ask for it. It’s nice to have a couple of stars on the red carpet. It gives you glamour, it gives you media presence, the audience is happy. But for the festival itself, I think for the audience, the discussion with the Argentinian filmmaker is at least as important. We havefestivals which we call “people festivals”. Who is on the red carpet is their most important issue. This is not my thing and also not Hamburg’s thing. It’s like it doesn’t fit this city at all. So, I have been happy about that.
(UM): I know that you’re saying that you’re leaving the festival at the end of this year, but I’m just wondering if you had any internal conversation about the future of your film festival, in the next 5 years or 10 years that you can share with us. Your hope and vision.
(AW): One of the big challenges is that we need to get a younger audience. At least in Germany, but I think it’s worldwide. The culture lives of a rather older audience. And I think it’s a big task for all of us, and also for a film festival to get the next generation back to the cinema. So this is the biggest challenge for my successor. She will have to find a way to get a younger audience back to the festivals. Right now, according to our exit polls, our average viewer is approximately 39-40 years old. So it’s about bringing the under-30-year-old back to the cinema.
(UM): At the end of our conversation, I wonder if anything is left that you think might be interesting that we missed during our conversation?
(AW): I think we’ve covered it all. It’s a big challenge. You’re in Canada so you’re a bit far away. In Europe, the Ukrainian war is next door. Especially when you’re in Germany. And it influences you a lot. And it also influences the way you do a festival. And I don’t feel good about having to boycott Russians for the moment. I’m doing it because I don’t want to support the war. But I’m against boycotting, I hate boycotts. And I don’t feel good about having to boycott but I have to. So it’s not a good time.
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