At 18.47 on Saturday, the 9th I’m heading across the festival area after a long and exciting two weeks. It’s almost quiet in comparison to when George Clooney walked across the carpet with only a few fans for the newest Takeshi Kitano movie waiting outside. In a few minutes the awards ceremony will begin in the Sala Grande. weiterlesen →
History moves in circles – or rather a square, if you go according to Samuel Moaz new film ‚Foxtrot‘, that follows the traumatic impact of war and more everyday tragedies on a family in modern-day Israel. The square, that the steps of the foxtrot trace on the floor, become a symbol for how psychological wounds get handed down the generations. From a survivor of the holocaust, to her accomplished son that hides the darkness of the Lebanon war and has never talked about his experiences. Not even to his wife and certainly not to his son, who now has to serve as a soldier himself on a remote checkpoint in the middle of nowhere. It’s forward, forward, sidestep, back, back, sidestep, forward, forward, sidestep…
Writing about the Berlinale, we have always taken care to have a look at the festival program outside of the movies that will end up in cinema for sure. Movies and projects that might be a little off or come from strange places, telling stories beyond or against the expectations. For this reason I took a look at a program that was launched by the Venice Film Festival in 2012, where the Festival funds a feature-length film with 150.000 Euro, that has to be made in ten months and presented at the Festival. I expected something rough and maybe interesting. I didn’t expect to be really taken in by Alena Lodkinas ‚Strange Colours‘.
