The film programme for Berlin Critics’ Week 2024
Experiments from India intertwined with dreamlike love triangles. Female anger is heard in duet with the macho slogans of career-obsessed businessmen. Buildings and political systems collapse – and then the gate to the afterlife bursts open in a police station. Little monkeys meet a giant fish and a horse girl, then join forces to imitate the world. Activist cinema makes an appearance, showing itself to be eloquent and polyphonic in the face of global crises. The film programme for the 10th Berlin Critics’ Week has been announced.
On February 15, the first film night of Berlin Critics’ Week 2024 – titled Phantom Thread – will focus on the poetic and metaphorical side of cinema and on the cinematic obsession with textures. Amit Dutta is one of the most prominent voices in experimental film worldwide, well known for his multifaceted explorations of India’s artistic and cultural history, as well as for the particular symbolism of his images. In his new film Mother, Who Will Weave Now?, Dutta interweaves embroidery from a museum archive with the mystic poetry of the 15th-century saint Kabir. This film comes into dialogue with the second feature film from producer, distributor, and director Graham Swon (The World Is Full of Secrets), who produced in recent years films of Ricky D’Ambrose and Matías Piñeiro, among others. In An Evening Song (for Three Voices), Swon narrates the love triangle between two writers (Hannah Gross and Peter Vack) and their housekeeper (Deragh Campbell). Historical references, allusions to different film styles, and the perspectives of the characters all merge together into an impressionistic dream.
In her new video essay, Chloé Galibert-Laîné is pretty angry. Or at least she wants to be: I Would Like to Rage is a sharp, ironic comment on how expressions of anger are often stigmatized, both privately and publicly, and especially in the case of women. Her reference points in pop culture and the internet constantly create new images to represent the expression of anger – but eventually no means of escape from the limitations of society. Searching for a solution, she ultimately dares to experiment on herself. In the programme Sound and Fury Chloé Galibert-Laîné’s film encounters a second film with a title that also says it all, namely Dicks: The Musical. Based on their Off-Broadway cult success Fucking Identical Twins, and with the support of US production company A24, comedians Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson are currently whirling through international cinemas and streaming platforms, spurred on by melodies and melodrama, gay quips, raunchy punchlines, and vast eruptions of nonsense. The film is directed by Larry Charles (Brüno, Borat, Religulous), one of the most anarchic directors in contemporary US cinema who – beyond his recurrent collaborations with Sacha Baron Cohen – is well known for his sarcastic attitudes and sharp opinions on religion and society.
In our programme City Lights, urban and cinematic shapes collide. First, a building collapses – it could be any building, but it was a special one. For her 1991 film Warnes, Narcisa Hirsch filmed in slow motion the demolition of Argentina’s largest children’s hospital by the government of Carlos Menem. Originally ordered by Eva Perón some 40 years earlier, the building was never completed, and remained a political issue for a long time; many residents who had been living in the unused building for decades were displaced when it was eventually demolished. Meanwhile, the social realities of Buenos Aires today figure into Francisco Bouzas’s Hidden City, which takes – as its title – the nickname given to Villa 15 shanty town. In this punky, tragicomic DIY gangster film, a queer gang of carnival musicians engage readily in clashes with the police. When a member of their clique dies, the law gets in their way once again, as the gateway to the afterlife – and thus the place to farewell the deceased – happens to be located in the middle of the police station.
On February 17, three films will present – under the title Imitation of Life – conceptions of the world that are similar to our reality, but much better. In Slow Shift, Shambhavi Kaul subtly and ingeniously juxtaposes the facial expressions of langur monkeys with stones and rocks that have particular characteristics: Imperceptibly, her experimental use of documentary footage transforms the town of Hampi in southern India from a World Heritage site into a totally unpredictable cinematic space of rediscovery. In Camping du Lac by Éléonore Saintagnan, it’s not just cinema that becomes a question of faith. On a lake in the French countryside, the legend of Saint Corentin and his holy fish still lives on today, bearing curious fruit when a young woman – the director herself plays the lead role – closely examines the solitary lives of the campers all around. Working together with a group of mainly amateur actors, Saintagnan plays virtuosically with tension, relaxation, genre, and utopia. Finally in Horse Girl, Natalia del Mar Kašik shows just how much her filmmaking is on the point, by simply having a woman impersonate a horse for four minutes.
For Berlin Critics’ Week 2024, we are working once more with a guest curator. The art historian and cultural critic T. J. Demos will be the co-curator of this year’s conference. In his film programme Elemental Bodies: Ecologies, Media, Extraction, Demos will present a wide repertoire of video essays that deal with the interrelationships between ecology, capitalism, technology, and image-making. In The Ecology of Science Fiction, Renee Hendrix, Tobias Dekker, and Marlene Fischer compare images of the future in cinema with PR videos by Elon Musk and co., while in Literally No Place, Daniel Felstead and Jenn Leung explore how Artificial Intelligence currently influences a new kind of doomsday rhetoric, as well as new beliefs in progress, as well as certain kinds of spirituality and ideology. Both Serpent Rain by Arjuna Neuman and Denise Ferreira da Silva and Message of the Forest by the collective The Otolith Group offer political perspectives on representations of nature; the video work Crossings by Angela Melitopoulos examines labour relations, migration crises, and current financial struggles in relation to the understanding of democracy in ancient Greece. Berlin Critics’ Week 2024 will take place from February 14 to February 22, 2024. The film programme begins on Thursday, February 15, at the Hackesche Höfe Kino.
All film programmes of Berlin Critics’ Week 2024 at a glance
THU 15 Feb
8 pm
PHANTOM THREAD
MOTHER, WHO WILL WEAVE NOW?
Dir: Amit Dutta, IND 2022, 25 min. – German premiere
AN EVENING SONG (FOR THREE VOICES)
Dir: Graham Swon, USA 2023, 86 min. – German premiere
FRI 16 Feb
8 pm
ELEMENTAL BODIES: ECOLOGIES, MEDIA, EXTRACTION
Guest programme curated by T. J. Demos
THE ECOLOGY OF SCIENCE FICTION
Dir: Renee Hendrix, Tobias Dekker, Marlene Fischer, SUI 2023, 11 min. – German premiere
LITERALLY NO PLACE
Dir: Daniel Felstead, Jenn Leung, USA 2023, 18 min.
SERPENT RAIN
Dir: Arjuna Neuman, Denise Ferreira da Silva, NOR 2016, 30 min.
MESSAGE OF THE FOREST
Dir: The Otolith Group, GBR 2019, 4 min.
CROSSINGS
Dir: Angela Melitopoulos, GER 2017, 20 min. (excerpt)
SAT 17 Feb
8 pm
IMITATION OF LIFE
SLOW SHIFT
Dir: Shambhavi Kaul, IND/USA 2023, 9 min. – European premiere
CAMPING DU LAC
Dir: Éléonore Saintagnan, BEL/FRA 2023, 69 min.
HORSE GIRL
Dir: Natalia del Mar Kašik, AUT 2023, 4 min. – World premiere
SUN 18 Feb
8 pm
SOUND AND FURY
I WOULD LIKE TO RAGE
Dir: Chloé Galibert-Laîné, FRA 2023, 11 min. – German premiere
DICKS: THE MUSICAL
Dir: Larry Charles, USA 2023, 86 min. – German premiere
MON 19 Feb
8 pm
HANGOVER
DREAMS ABOUT PUTIN
Dir: Nastia Korkia, BEL/HUN/PRT 2023, 30 min. – German premiere
TEDIOUS DAYS AND NIGHTS
Dir: Zhenming Guo, CHN 2023, 110 min. – European premiere
TUE 20 Feb
8 pm
CARNIVAL OF SOULS
ABENDLAND
Dir: Omer Fast, GER 2024, 115 min. – World premiere
NOTES FROM GOG MAGOG
Dir: Riar Rizaldi, IDN 2023, 19 min. – German premiere
WED 21 Feb
8 pm
CITY LIGHTS
WARNES
Dir: Narcisa Hirsch, ARG 1991, 3 min.
HIDDEN CITY
Dir: Francisco Bouzas, ARG 2024, 95 min. – World premiere
THU 22 Feb
8 pm
HARD, FAST AND BEAUTIFUL
PISTOLERAS
Dir: Natalia del Mar Kašik, AUT 2023, 2 min. – German premiere
NOCTURNE FOR A FOREST
Dir: Catarina Vasconcelos, PRT 2023, 16 min. – German premiere
WIKIRIDERS
Dir: Clara Winter, Miiel Ferráez, MEX/GER 2024, 60 min. – World premiere
Press contact: Elisabeth Mohr, presse@wochederkritik.de
Announcement for the opening conference
Ticket sale for the opening conference
Berlin Critics’ Week is an event organized by the German Film Critics Association and funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds, the Stiftung Kulturwerk of the VG Bild-Kunst, and the Rudolf Augstein Foundation. The opening conference will be held in cooperation with the Film and Media Art section of the Akademie der Künste.