Dear readers, dear audience of the Critics’ Week,

For the tenth festival edition of the Critics’ Week, we will be addressing the climate catastrophe in various different formats. Ten years is nothing in the face of a billion-year-old Earth – and yet they mean so much for the ecosystems and species of this (once) blue planet. The climatic effects of this catastrophe and its social consequences worldwide, as well as public debates and political clashes, have increased exponentially over the past ten years – and will continue to do so.

In film production in Germany, climate guidelines have recently become mandatory for subsidized projects for the first time. These guidelines are likely to be further expanded upon and refined in the coming years. Nevertheless, this topic is currently being pushed into the background again. In view of other man-made crises and ongoing wars, it sometimes seems difficult to think about the destruction of ecosystems and moreso, how to prevent it. But in the end, everything is connected. It is well known that the global military causes the largest share of all international climate emissions, and wars regularly destroy entire ecosystems in a very short space of time.

In order to address the concept of sustainability and the necessary systemic change within film culture from the perspective of art and cinema, we have invited film curator and author Greg de Cuir Jr. as our guest editor for the current festival edition.

Supplemented by two podcasts, this year’s magazine is an extension of the opening conference “Filmmaking against all odds?”, the film and debate programme “Elemental Bodies” by our guest curator T.J. Demos and an accompanying thematic workshop.

Across six pieces of writing, authors pose questions about the Anthropocene, the multiverse and cinema’s use of resources. They describe artistic practices of recycling, reflect on the possibilities of the video essay, and shed light on film history, technological progress and artificial intelligence in connection with ecological considerations.

The Critics’ Week team hopes you enjoy reading and listening.

Berlin, February 2024