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The logo of the 74th International Film Festival at the press conference to announce the 2024 Berlinale program. © Jens Kalaene/dpa
The Berlinale is pulling the ripcord: AfD politicians are not welcome at the opening.
The party is now defending itself.
Berlin's governing mayor also joins the debate.
Berlin - Almost a week before the big opening gala, the Berlinale is once again positioning itself as a political film festival.
After the controversial invitations to the AfD were withdrawn, it is currently less about new films and Golden Bears than about the question of how to deal with politicians from a right-wing populist party, which is being monitored in several parts by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The background is the invitation of five AfD politicians to the Berlinale opening next Thursday, who had also announced that they would come.
After international criticism, the film festival disinvited the party representatives.
Berlin's Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) wants to stick to the current protocol for invitations to party representatives.
There are no plans to change the “protocol practices,” said Senate spokeswoman Christine Richter on Friday.
“We act according to the principle of equal treatment.” However, Richter went on to say that the decision of the Berlinale management was of course respected.
The Senate Chancellery had previously announced that Parliament, as the budget legislator, is always invited to events that are supported with public money.
“All factions represented in the House of Representatives are taken into account.” The protocol department of the Senate Chancellery coordinates with the Berlinale how many invitations go to whom and to whom, depending on the quota available to the state of Berlin.
The Berlinale leadership said that the AfD and many of its members have views that deeply contradict the basic values of democracy.
At a time when right-wing extremists are entering parliament, the Berlinale wants to take a clear position.
After the “Correctiv” research and the large demonstrations against right-wing extremism and the AfD, the debate gained momentum.
The Berlin AfD state and parliamentary group leader Kristin Brinker criticized the disinvitation on Friday as a “cultural-political beacon”.
“With its decision, the Berlinale is bowing to the public pressure from cultural-political activists that has built up in recent days,” said Brinker.
The aim of these activists is to declare the AfD and its supporters to be undesirables.
Brinker pointed out that she had been invited over the past two years and had taken up the offer.
By disinviting people this year, those responsible for the Berlinale not only excluded themselves and their AfD colleagues, but also large parts of society, said the politician.
“They exclude people who struggle with the prevailing conditions and turn to us, the AfD, in the hope of revitalizing democracy.”
This means that the unloading has an impact on society far beyond the cultural sector.
“It excludes, it stigmatizes and denies democratically elected representatives of the AfD the same rights that it grants to others,” said Brinker.
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Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth sees it differently.
“The reports on the secret meeting in Potsdam recently made it very clear how the AfD is thinking about disenfranchising and deporting a large part of the citizens in this country,” said a spokesman for the Green politician on Thursday.
“It is understandable that filmmakers from Germany, Europe and the world are committed to ensuring that racists and enemies of democracy should have no place at the Berlinale.” Finally, the decision rests with the Berlinale management as to who they want to welcome - this is respected.
The debate about how to deal with the AfD is not new at the major film festival.
In 2019, the then director Dieter Kosslick briefly included the documentary “The Secret Archive in the Warsaw Ghetto” in the program - and invited party representatives to it.
The film describes the history of the underground archive in the Warsaw Ghetto, founded in 1941.
The aim was to document how Jews lived in the ghetto and how they were murdered.
However, the AfD largely rejected the offer.
Along with Cannes and Venice, the Berlinale is one of the major film festivals.
The next edition opens next Thursday.
dpa