Completion – 75th Berlinale: If the fainting comes over you

The Berlinale started with the penis of Lars Eidinger. And with the newspaper »ND«. Actually! Both occurred in Tom Tykwers opening film “Das Licht”. The penis of Lars Eidinger several times than its trademark; The newspaper “nd” only once, as one of the newspapers and magazines that the Berlin family of Engels subscribed to in the film. And on the contrary to the permanently rainy Berlin in Tykwers film, most of the festival days were sunny. And cold. It was one of the colder – and more hopeless – winter. Because of world politics. But the films contributed something to the cold. Heart warming stories, moments and pictures could be found in every section of the festival. And sentences from the films that don’t get out of your head quickly. “Children are the most normal people,” said the gentle, emotionally collapsed and therefore homeless ARI in the French competition film of the same name. With the many madness in the current world of adults, you want to think about this sentence again and again. And if you get the fainting over and you have the feeling that you no longer get air, you involuntarily remember the charismatic figure Valeska (Hanna Schygulla) in the competition film “Yunan”, which said the Syrian Munir, who suffers under shortness of breath: “So much You don’t need air at all. ”What actually calmed down the man.

Sometimes a sentence from a film is enough to never forget it again. “What is the best sentence in” Casablanca “?” Asked the US songwriter Lorenz Hart Hart in the Richard Linklater competition “Blue Moon” everyone who met in the bar to take this as an opportunity to make art and beauty of itself. The acting performance of Ethan Hawke as Lorenz Hart, who was wearing the whole film alone. When in 1943, in which “Blue Moon” played, men kept monologues continuously, women in the modern Norwegian love drama “DRømmer” (Dreams (Sex Love)) lead more intelligent dialogues. The highly interesting and humorous conversations between three generations of women in a family of Oslo brought the film to the Golden Bear of the Berlinale. But the Panorama audience has chosen the Spanish title »Sorda« as the best film in contrast to some dialogal work in the competition, in which the history of the sound disappears, so that the world is suddenly experienced from the perspective of the deaf main character Ángela, who tries to find newborns with their hearing way of communication.

So there was no shortage of good films. Especially in the sections Panorama and Berlinale Special, some titles were of high quality and more interesting than some work in the competition. It is unclear why these were shown out of competition or in the side rows. There were also long -winded evenings. In the debut film “Come La notte” (where the night stands, which was premiered in the Perspective section, the leading actress swept the ground for 15 minutes. The fact that a little mouse was showering during the premiere in the new cinema Stage Bluemax Theater and laughing at it in the first rows was probably the most exciting what happened during this screening. Apart from the last minute of the film.

The documentary, which was chosen by the panorama audience on the evening before the Bundestag election, had a clear message to politics.

But every time in the cinema, when the next credits were over and the light was switched on again, the news of politics in the face hit you, hardly that you had your cell phone back on hand. News about the attacks that happened during the festival in Germany, about the plans of the US President for the Gaza Strip and Ukraine and the Bundestag election. All of this has overshadowed the festival. In addition, there were also some statements from two or three international guests-especially the sympathy of actress Tilda Swinton for the BDS movement-, of which the Berlinale expressly distanced itself, but which were given the occasion to question the festival as a whole and to even want to delete its financial means.

The new director Tricia Tuttle has put together her program so carefully that it did justice to both film art as well as the sensitive topics of our time, which increased appropriately from year to year. During the Berlinale, Hanau’s racist attack was for the fifth time, the raid on Russia to Ukraine for the third time. In different sections of the festival there were documentation, which dealt with these topics. In addition, in 2025 the end of the Second World War and the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for the 80th time. On the occasion of this, the Berlinale showed the film “Shoah” by Claude Lanzmann, who was premiered 40 years ago. Two more documentary “Michtav Le’david” (a Letter to David) and “Holding Liat” acted about the hostages that were captured by Hamas. “Holding Liat” by Brandon Kramer, who was running in the Forum section and won the prize for the best documentary, tells of the former Hamas-Geisel Liat Beinin Atzili and her family. A family who adhered to their beloved and at the same time sought for a peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians, as the director of the film said at the award ceremony.

The documentary, which was chosen by the Panorama audience on the evening before the Bundestag election, also had a clear message to politics. “The Möllner Letters” by Martina Priessner deals with the survivors of the racist arson attack by Mölln in 1992. The numerous solidarity letters that people wrote to the families at the time remained in the archive of the city of Mölln. The survivors knew nothing about 27 years. By chance, these letters were discovered by a student in the archive. Only now does the victims notice that they weren’t alone at the time. While the Berlinale audience has deliberately chosen a documentary that is committed to racism and xenophobia, Germany chose very differently. Parties were the winners of this election who have everything else on the agenda than to combat xenophobia.

At the beginning of the festival there was still a feeling of lightness, everything was still festive, still funny, in the end. Like this text. Well, overwhelmed by fainting, you may understand why the Munir living in exile in the film »Yunan«, despite physical health, often could not get air.