Berlinale film festival is, without doubt, one of the top three film festivals in the world. Historically it was created as a response to the troubling relation of Germany with its past Nazim. So it was defined as a liberal environment to defend the value of a modern and plural world, a window to let all voices get in and be heard of.
Since 2020, the festival has appointed a new artistic director, Carlo Chatrian, the former artistic director of Locarno, to supervise its programming. In this short span of time, we can see the positive impact of this appointment on the festival’s structure. Some of the best daring voices of 2021 were introduced through the festival, and they certainly proved that the festival is still doing its best to be an innovator in the though competitive reality of the festival’s market. We had a chance to speak with Chatrian to know more about his vision of the festival and his plan for the future edition.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Historically, Berlinale was considered a kind of political festival created to give marginalized people or alternative voices. The problem I see now, though, is that many festivals are becoming very political. There is an inordinate focus on diversity and representing women’s voices, and because of this, film festivals are becoming more and more similar. Even Hollywood is changing its focus to represent diversity. So for me, it is becoming very difficult to distinguish festivals and more important festivals from Hollywood systems. So I’m wondering, how do you see Berlinale in this new world structure, and how do you want to define or make Berlinale different from the other festivals or even Hollywood?
Carlo Chatrian (CC): Mm-hmm. Your analysis is right. I believe there is a bigger, wider awareness in the film business about how cinema is tightly connected with the society and with the world we are living in. On the other hand, I also believe that, well, of course, festivals are defined by their content, which means by the films that are being shown, but also, by the place and therefore, by the audience, professional or normal audience that attend the screenings. And in that respect, I believe that Berlinale is very easily identified…Berlin is a very political city because of its history. It’s a multicultural city, one of the most multicultural cities in Europe. The different audiences that come to the festival come to have a better awareness of the world we are living in, but also, to understand how cinema is placed to describe, to criticize, to question the world we are living in. So that’s the general answer. If you want, I can be more specific. For me, the language that films use goes along with the politicology. So, it’s not that you have control, and, on the other hand, the art. The two are together. And I think there is, nowadays, still a big need to find new voices in cinema, and I’m totally committed to that. We have created encounters, the new competitive section precisely, to give a different place for these new voices knowing that the main competition sometimes is to offer a too big exposure to this film. So, we are committed to giving room to new voices in cinema, which are, as you said, representative of also, a new way of looking at society and true films.
(UM): You have introduced a new gender-neutral policy in terms of acting awards, and you decided to not give anymore, for example, the best award to women or the best award for an actor to the men. So you have created just one award for both men and women. This is a very interesting and very unique approach. We don’t have awards for best cinematographer for male or female, so why should we have two awards for acting? A correct analysis. But the thing that I’m seeing is that many contemporary films are about women or have a female protagonist. So you wanted to address the question of equal treatment of both genders, but we are now in a kind of unequal situation because there are more films about women, so indeed, more women actresses have a chance to get an award. At Cannes, I saw that, for example, out of twenty-two films, about sixteen had female protagonists. So I’m just curious if you have any thoughts about this.
(CC): You know that’s funny because when we introduced the award, we faced a lot of criticism, especially in Germany, from the guild of actresses, precisely because they said that there are not enough roles for women. So I am happy that you have come to a different conclusion. In the end, I think that when you give an award, it’s not about the quantity but the quality. The award is really awarding the quality. Of course, in a competition slate, out of eighteen films, you have thirteen that have only female protagonists then, it’s unbalanced. And this will be my duty, my goal, but the same thing applies, you know. If I have ten German films out of eighteen, or ten American films, so an American has a better chance to win the Golden Bear. So that’s the goal of the festival director or the programmers to combine a selection that is equal, knowing at the same time that we don’t want to work with a quota but rather, to pick the best film. I am not worried about that, to be honest. I am not worried that women could have or can have a better chance. I think, first of all, it would be good because, after many years, it’s good to put the spotlight on women. You know the entire Hollywood system, historically, is based on men. Hollywood classics creates their story focusing on man. The focus was always on men. We had great actresses, but the focus was always the men, and the men are still paid more than women. So if there is a little bit of imbalance, I’m not worried. I think it’s for the best.
(UM): Something that is very interesting in Berlinale that one didn’t see in other festivals is that we have both documentary films and feature films in the Berlinale’s main section. This is unique to Berlinale. I’m just curious about the reasoning behind this. Why did you decide not to make two distinct categories?
(CC): For me, a film is a film. I don’t make a distinction between a film that used the documentary technique…and a film that used fiction. And I think that, at least for my generation, one of the biggest, I wouldn’t say revolutions but renewals, was the fact that fiction and documentary merge more and more. What was before clearly divided, now, it’s not so because, probably, cinema, I mean, moving images, are around us all the time. They represent… our reality even more than the real world…I think it’s challenging in a good way for the jury. It’s challenging in a good way for the professionals, the press, and the buyers. I believe that, in the recent past, documentaries have proved that they can be successful in theatres. They can be very strong creatively. So I don’t see why we should put them in a ghetto in a second category. Again, so this is really my conviction, and, of course, it’s more difficult to find strong documentaries that can play in the main competition. But my effort is to try to find good documentaries as I am struggling every year to find good animation movies, knowing that even the animation has a different…appeal to different audiences. But if you want to have an international competition that really pays tribute to the art of cinema, you should have a little bit of everything.
(UM): I discussed this with my German colleagues, and they told me that one of the issues they have with Berlinale is that winning an award here does not necessarily help them on the market. For example, Touch Me Not got the best award in 2018, but they mentioned to me that the film was not even screened ideally in Germany, or even some of the documentaries that that got awards at Berlinale didn’t have any screening in Germany. So the fact that they got awards didn’t help them in terms of the sales market. So I’m just curious if you have any thoughts or reflections on this?
(CC): Well, first of all, let me disagree. I am aware that some of the films that won the Golden Bear were not that successful in terms of distribution in Germany, but I am sure that the fact that they won, helped them. Without winning or without being part of the main competition, they would have less exposure. But the real question is, what’s the role of a film festival? Should a film Festival pick only the films that already have distribution? Should film Festivals support the market in the sense that the selection has to be done only for film that has a market potential or should a Film Festival try to open a new way for cinema? Sometimes even if a film doesn’t get the distribution or gets a very tiny distribution, it’s important because they open new ways and contribute in expanding the spectrum of what cinema is…I admire very much Touch Me Not, but that was not my year so I didn’t select the film. And whatever we can think about the film, I think it was a very daring decision to put this film, which is nonnarrative, which is a first feature-length by a woman, by the way, in the main competition. I mean, sometimes, I feel a kind of contradiction. On the one hand, the industry and the professionals want to have new kinds of films, new voices, something different. And when something different is presented, then it’s an, ‘oh, it’s too strange, it’s too weird.’ Again, I think that the goal of a film festival, especially in Berlin, but this is something I’ve done also in Locarno, it’s really to be daring, and therefore, to go for films that are more difficult. I can refer to Uncle Boonmee at Cannes, which won the Golden Palm, and was probably not very successful in theatres either. I think that the history of festivals is also made of films that didn’t represent what the market or the people wanted to see, but nevertheless, contributed to cinemas as an art form. I think to complete my answer, it’s always a matter of finding the right combination because on the one hand, we don’t want to be elitist, especially in Berlin…we sell 300,000 tickets. So we are very popular. So on the one hand, we want to be popular, but on the other hand, we don’t want to give what the audience will see anyway, you know? We want to give them an opportunity to see something different and to see how large, how diverse is the film can be.
(UM): Among film festivals that I attended last year, I really liked the selection at the Berlinale and especially the two films that got the best awards; I mean Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn and Wheel of fortune and fantasy. And then you are talking about the fact that you want to present daring films in your selection. So I’m just curious if you can say more about what kind of films you consider good. Do you have any quality in mind or, for example, a good movie that you wanted to promote right now at Berlinale?
(CC): No. I don’t have the need or desire to say, “Oh, the films that are now presented are different from the films before.” I don’t select in thinking about that. What I’m looking for is something, of course, that surprised me and the people I watched film with. It’s always hard to say what is a good film because it’s very subjective. What I can say is that for me, a film, first of all, I should hear something that is unique despite the content…And on the other end, I’m always very much interested in films that expand my vision on the cinema, on the world. So that allows me to understand better the world, not only in a sociologic or political way but sometimes, even in an existential way. So, you quote, the Golden Bear by Radu Jude. I think it’s a film that used the pandemic in a very clever way. I never had, luckily enough, any opportunity to deal with a story of revenge porn, but, at the same time, it’s something that we read about in the newspaper. And the way the film deals with that, it’s very interesting because it’s a way to make a satire of a society, but, at the same time, connecting the present with the past. So for me, it’s always easy to talk about the films that I’ve selected rather than the film that I expected because, precisely, I don’t expect anything. Otherwise, I would like to impose my judgment on the films and the film should be free from that.
(UM): And in terms of selection, what is the relationship between you as a festival director and the programmer? Who has the last word on the selection of a film? Is it you, or is it the programmer? Or is it a genuinely collective decision-making process?
(CC): Well, my task, as artistic director, is to be responsible for the program. I am directly responsible for certain, for the central part of the festival. Me and my team, of course, it’s always a collective process, but at the same time, at the end, you need someone who has the final say and I am the one. So for the competition for Berlinale Best Encounters, I’m really that man. For other sections like Panorama generation, shorts, Berlinale series, it’s more like a shared decision. So I do watch all the films that have been selected. I can discuss beforehand with the different heads of the sections. But for Panorama Generations, shorts, some Berlinale series, is also the decision of the head of the sections. That’s was in place before my arrival, and I believe that it’s also part of the identity of the festival to have this plurality of positions. Of course, my goal is to try to make sense out of all these films. So to have a program that is organic that…is diverse but, at the same time, is not contradictory. And then because maybe it’s important for your readers to know, the forum is a little bit like the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes so they do have a separate committee of selection. They do have a separate process of selection. So I am discussing all the time with the head of the forum, but in that case, we are not discussing about, “You should select this film or not.” It’s rather, “Okay, you want to go with this film, and then we don’t select it or the other way around.”
(UM): And when you mention that you are trying to create a kind of unified or coherent selection, suppose that for example, I’m a filmmaker and I make a fascinating film in defence of capital punishment or on a very controversial topic, like, for example, I defend abortion. Will you accept films that go against liberal norms?
(CC): Regarding my duty as a festival director, artistic festival director, is more to avoid overlapping. So if we have one film that really goes in one direction, of course, we can have another one, but maybe if we have three others, they can collide. Also, for me, as I have the overview, I am aware of giving enough representation to all cinematography as long as it’s possible and avoid having too many films from one country rather than another, and also, to see the trend or the topic. So that’s really my job in understanding where we are going altogether as a film festival. Then regarding your question, usually, I try not to think too much in terms of topic but rather in terms of film. There are films that can be provocative, but for me, it’s important to understand the real goal. So usually, when I feel I want to deliver a message, whether it’s liberal or anti-liberal, for me, it fails because it becomes something more for the TV or for the reportage rather than cinema. Cinema is more interesting when raising questions rather than giving answers. So I can give an example, which is not anti-liberal but on the contrary, it’s the film that in 2021, the special prize of the jury, which is called a “Never Rarely Sometimes Always.” So it’s a controversial film because in the US, it’s still complicated to have an abortion when you are underage, but I think the film is not only strong because of that. Of course, it has a message, but because it put the viewer in the place of the protagonist. So, in that sense, it’s very cinematic. Would I have selected the same films going the opposite direction? Hard to say because, again, it’s always the way the film deals with the topic and the way it allows the audience to have different positions and not just one so to question the theme, or the topic, or the journey that the protagonist is undergoing.
(UM): In terms of your relationship with the film distributor or international distributors, what is the connection between Berlinale and international sales companies? How far do you prioritize sale agents’ suggestions in your decision-making process?
(CC): It’s a very good relationship. Berlinale is an established film festival. It’s one of the biggest and most relevant markets. So the sales companies have a huge interest in having their film positioned at the Berlinale. So this is an ongoing discussion. Of course, for me in the end, what matters is the film. And some of the films we select in every section, even in competition, don’t belong to any sales company. They are acquired afterwards. So for me, again, I don’t position myself in those terms. I consider sales company as an important partner for the festival and for our selection, but at the same time, I don’t rely only on them to do my selection.
(UM): What kind of festival do you hope to have? Is it going to be a hybrid festival? Are you going to have a sort of physical festival?
(CC): We are hoping and right now, we are confident that we will have an in-presence event. Last year, when everything was very complicated, we decided to still have an in-presence event at least for our public. So, we had the first half, which was online, but just for professionals. And we asked our public to wait…until the summer where we had an in-presence event. So if we manage to have something like that…we are confident this year we will be able to go back, probably, not to the same kind of festival that was in place pre-pandemic times, but in presence event. So for the festival, we are really aiming to have screenings in theatres, to have press screenings, to have the gala dimension, to have all the sections in place, which means also the retrospective part so the section that last year couldn’t take place. As you said, it’s a hope, it’s a wish. We are, of course, considering all different scenarios, but right now, we are quite confident. I mean, the vaccination rate in Europe, it’s pretty high. The different government has put in place measures that are quite successful so far. It seems that things are going in the right way.