The Berlin Festival competition includes films that were mostly made during the pandemic

Berlin: The Berlin Film Festival announced on Thursday the list of films selected to participate in its 2021 competition, which is held virtually, and includes works that were mostly carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the organizers.

And 15 films were chosen in the default format of the main competition for the festival that will be held in early March.

Among the works competing for the “Golden Bear” is the movie “Ish Bin Din Munch” by German director Maria Schrader, who won an Emmy award last year for her successful series “Anorthodox” on the “Netflix” network.

Her new movie, a romantic comedy, centers on a woman searching for the perfect man, played by Sander Haller, who previously appeared in “Tony Erdman”.

The race for the festival prize is contested by the film “Nipenan”, the first directorial film by German actor Daniel Brühl who gained international fame and became a star thanks to the movie “Goodby Berlin.”

As for the Romanian Radu Judd, winner in Berlin in 2015 for “Averim”, he tries to replicate his achievement through the film “Bad Luck Banging or Lonnie Born” about a teacher portrayed in a sex tape whose widespread spread on the Internet leaves a negative impact on her life.

The charts included the French films “Albatros” by Xavier Beauvois and “Petit Maman” by Celine Sciama.

“Petit Maman” deals with the topic of childhood after its director, Siamma, won the 2019 award for best screenplay at the Festival de Cannes for her film “Portrait of Don John in An Fu.”

As for “Albatross”, it tells the story of an officer whose life is turned upside down after he kills a man while trying to prevent him from committing suicide.

Also included in the competition was the film “Memory Books” (titled in Arabic “Maya Notebooks”) by Lebanese directors Joanna Haji Touma and Khalil Joreige, about a Lebanese woman who immigrated to Montreal, reliving memories of her country during the war he witnessed.

The festival’s artistic director, Carlo Chatrian, said that the 15 films, 12 of them being the first by their directors, were fully or partially completed during the pandemic.

“Few of them directly show the new world in which we live, but they all reflect current anxiety,” he added during an online presentation of the selected list. He observed that “a feeling of fear is everywhere.”

Judgement comity

This year’s festival jury consists of six former Golden Bear winners, and it will not have any exceptional president.

The committee includes Iranian director Muhammad Rasulov, who won the Golden Bear Prize in 2020 for his film “No Evil Exist.” Sol ”in 2017), Italian Gianfranco Rossi (“ Fire At Sea ”in 2016) and Bosnian Jasmila Zbanic (“ Grabavica ”in 2006).

The festival was supposed to be held on its usual annual date in February, but the organizers announced in December to postpone it to next March due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 71st edition of the festival will be held “in two stages,” the first of which is a virtual official competition and the distribution of prizes from the first of March to the fifth thereof, while from June 9 to 20 next, open shows will be held for the public, which are tentatively expected to be held in galleries and in the open air.

While the health crisis will deprive the festival of the red carpet, the event will benefit from the second date at the end of spring to hand out prizes in the presence of the winners.The Berlin Festival, which began in 1951, is considered one of the three most important festivals in Europe, along with Cannes and Venice.

Source: ELAPH