Lupita Nyong'o, Oscar winner for playing a slave, Marvel heroine and the first black president of the official jury at the Berlinale, said it at the start of the contest.
“In the 48 hours I have been here, I have not stopped hearing that the Berlinale is very political.
I’m curious to know what that means,” she stated.
It didn't take long for her to find out: since its inception, the film festival has had to face different storms derived from the conflict in the Middle East.
Already on the red carpet of the opening gala, several guests wore messages of support for Palestine and for the ceasefire.
Among them, the director Eliza Hittman, awarded by the Berlinale in 2020 with
Never, Almost Never, Sometimes, Always
.
Inside the room, some speeches alluded to the “elephant in the room”: the festival's criticized equidistance from the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
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Far from calling for a ceasefire, as its detractors demand, the festival has preferred a balancing act, a symptom of how delicate it is to criticize Israel in the country that organized the Holocaust.
Before the beginning of this edition, its directors, Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek, expressed their solidarity with “all the victims of the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East and elsewhere” and expressed their rejection “of anti-Semitism and anti-Islam resentment.”
That rhetoric did not please the Berlinale workers themselves, who signed an open letter urging those responsible to adopt a position “consistent with the responses to the events of recent years,” such as the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Two directors from the parallel Forum Expanded section withdrew their films as a sign of support for the Strike Germany collective, which defends the boycott of activities dependent on German state funds, such as this festival.
The group urges agents in the cultural sector not to participate in them until Berlin puts an end to “McCarthyism policies that suppress freedom of expression” and “expressions of solidarity with Palestine.”
An image from the documentary 'No Other Land', about the destruction of a West Bank community, directed by a collective of four Israeli and Palestinian directors.
Despite everything, several films in this edition deal with the conflict and its geopolitical consequences.
The most notable in
No Other Land
, screened this Saturday in the parallel section Panorama, a documentary by a collective of four Israeli and Palestinian directors, who observe the gradual destruction, over the decades, of Masafer Yatta, in the West Bank, by part of the Israeli army and hit by
a bulldozer
.
“There is a lot of talk about reconciliation and coexistence, but it is not an idea that we defend.
We prefer to talk about joint resistance,” said yesterday two of its leaders, the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and the Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who grew up and continues to live in Masafer Yatta.
“It's not about talking to make friends.
Our alliance is based, above all, on political opposition to the occupation.
“If we want a future where Israel and Palestine can have a connection, we have to be equal.”
The lukewarmness of the Berlinale seems “a shame” to them, but they did not want to boycott the festival: “Here we reach a massive audience, which was the ultimate objective of this project.”
They are not the only titles that recall the fragile situation of the region and the origin of the religious conflict.
Diaries from Lebanon
, by Myriam El Hajj, portrays three generations fighting corruption in their country, while
Holy Week
, by Andrei Cohn, unearths the roots of anti-Semitism on the European continent through a story set in Romania. 1900. And, somewhat further afield, but also in the Middle East,
My Favorite Cake
, by Iranians Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, which denounces the decline of freedoms in Iran and shows an old woman dancing and drinking alcohol.
The country's regime has prohibited its directors from traveling to the Berlinale, which reserved two empty seats for them as a sign of protest during the presentation of the film, a somber romantic comedy set in the elderly that smells like an award.
Its directors were not surprised by the veto.
“The film contains everything that is prohibited for women and what cannot be shown in the cinema,” they assured
Variety
.
Melika Pazouki and Lily Farhadpour in the Iranian 'My Favorite Cake', which is competing for the Golden Bear. Tehran has banned its directors from attending the festival.Mohammad Haddadi
Itinerant debate
To avoid criticism of immobility, the festival has adopted two initiatives: it organized a debate after the premiere of
No Other Land
and it has also hosted the Tiny House project, a traveling initiative to debate the conflict in German schools and also in space. public.
It is a house on wheels with capacity for six people, which was installed throughout the weekend in the vicinity of the festival.
Festival attendees were invited to access it to debate with strangers and express their opinions on the conflict in the Middle East.
The result will be distributed in the form of
a podcast
.
The creator of the initiative is the actor and presenter Shai Hoffmann, a German Jew of Israeli origin, who has led these spontaneous debates together with the Palestinian academic Ahmad Dakhnous.
“It is important to talk about this conflict in the context of the festival, on a large stage, but it is also important to be able to debate in a more intimate and calm format,” its managers stated yesterday next to their mobile home.
Theirs is a debate without limits, with one exception: “Freedom of expression ends when international rights are violated.”
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