Berlin Film Festival Spotlights a World Grappling With Change
BERLIN -- At a recent meeting with journalists to discuss this year's Berlin International Film Festival, Diester Kosslick pointed to "Django," a film about the persecution of Roma jazz guitarist Django Rheinhardt in Nazi-occupied Paris, as proof of how the festival resonates with today's political currents. Kosslick cited a rise today in anxiety over minorities, including refugees, in Europe and in the U.S. as arguments for the film's relevance.
"Film culture, film festivals and people working in culture generally must stand up against these tendencies," Kosslick, director of the festival, told members of Berlin's Foreign Press Association in Germany's capital.
Running Feb. 9-19, the Berlin International Film Festival, also called the Berlinale, is in its 67 th year. One of the major film festivals in the world, organizers say it is the most heavily attended such event, selling more than 300,000 tickets in 2016.
With the European Union strained by debates over refugee policy, Brexit and upcoming federal elections in Germany, France and the Netherlands, many festival selections are bound to be interpreted through a political lens.
While the Berlinale program addresses serious topics such as discrimination against refugees and exploitation in Africa, Kosslick maintains the overall program is life-affirming. "Although filmmakers describe these unpleasant tendencies in our society, in all the films we've programmed, in the end or the middle, there is hope and a way out."
Take, for example, "The Other Side of Hope," the latest opus by Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki. Observers say Kaurismäki skillfully blends melancholy and humor. "His films are on a knife edge between tragedy and comedy ," says Jaakko Seppälä, a researcher in film and television studies at Helsinki University who studies the director's work. "You don't quite know whether he's being serious or simply tongue in cheek."
One of the most anticipated premieres of Berlinale, "The Other Side of Hope" is inspired by Europe's refugee crisis. It connects the lives of Wikström , a 50-year-old traveling salesman, and Khaled , a Syrian refugee , who, upon learning that that he will be deported to Aleppo, decides to stay in Finland illegally and finds both discrimination and kindness.
"With this film, I try to do my best to shatter the European way of only seeing refugees as either pitiful victims or arrogant economic immigrants invading our societies merely to steal our jobs, our wives, our homes and our cars," Kaurismäki said in a prepared statement.
Kaurismäki's upcoming film is part of a trilogy about port towns, and so far, it seems, refugees. The first, "Le Havre" (2011) , set in the nondescript French seaside town, tells of a shoe-shiner's selfless plight to help a young African immigrant reach his mother in the United Kingdom.
"I think the topic is internationally interesting," says Petri Rossi, head of production and development at the Finnish Film Foundation, which funded half of the film. "It gives in a way a face and personality to refugees."
Although the upcoming film is set in Finland, Rossi stresses the topic is a global one, likely to resonate with Kaurismäki's large fan base abroad. "He was one of the first Finnish directors who really had an international career, starting even from his earliest films ," says Rossi. Along with his elder brother Mika, Kaurismäki is credited with sparking the rebirth of Finnish cinema that began in the 80s.
Addressing the polarizing refugee topic in the context of Finland, which tightened its immigration policy in recent months, is in line with the director's history of engaging with current affairs both in and out of his films. In 2003, Kaurismäki boycotted the Oscars in protest of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, refusing to attend although his film "The Man Without a Past" was nominated for Best Foreign Film. In 2002, he canceled a visit to the New York Film Festival because Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami was refused a visa
"He has always been making films that are more or less contemporary or discussing pressing social issues," says Seppälä. Earlier movies like 1996 "Drifting Clouds," set during a period of economic depression in Finland, tell stories with global appeal. It's a universal story about the plight of the working class -- a man and a wife who lose their jobs and try to build a new life, says the researcher.
Sarah Hucal is a Berlin-based journalist. You can follow her on Twitter here.
