Online Magazine and Podcasts for Berlin Critics’ Week
This year, we are once again using online formats to complement and broaden the events of Berlin Critics’ Week. In our online magazine, we will publish essays and dialogues that delve deeper into this year’s debate topics and into the motifs of individual films, expanding them by bringing additional perspectives to bear. Using this year’s conference, Cinema of Care – Who looks after film culture? as a jumping-off point, other interviewees and authors will address topics related to their work in film. This year’s conference also heralds the launch of our new podcast series, which will accompany Berlin Critics’ Week 2023.
Online Magazine for Berlin Critics’ Week
This year’s guest editor Patrick Holzapfel was also a member of our selection committee. He is an author and film critic (MUBI Notebook, Perlentaucher, Filmdienst) and runs the magazine Jugend ohne Film, which appears both online and in print.
In this year’s Berlin Critics’ Week online magazine, I aimed to bring together different voices from inside and outside film culture. My concept was to create different echo chambers that would reflect both this year’s festival motto and the individual programs. Themes such as sleep, sexuality, mindfulness, nature, marginalization, and motherhood all appear in a variety of contexts and get examined from different points of view. I invited the authors to write as freely and openly as possible.
I intentionally made the editorial work very personal. I find that it is very difficult to have meaningful dialogues in the fast-paced festival world, so I wanted to facilitate deeper conversations and exchanges that would be interesting to read even after the festival. I hope the issues that dealt with in the magazine will also be of interest to our readers – and will reach those who want to draw connections between the films they see and the world they live in.
– Patrick Holzapfel
The magazine features texts by – and conversations with – culture worker and film educator Alejandro Bachmann (Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln); curator Andréa Picard (Toronto International Film Festival); curator and film restorer Janneke van Dalen (Austrian Film Museum); film critic and curator Roger Koza (Viennale); the blog Ozu Teapot; film critic Tara Karajica (Screen International, Variety); curator Christoph Huber (Austrian Film Museum); author, DJ and podcast co-host Nadine Smith (New York Times Magazine, Pitchfork); poet and essayist Kathleen Jamie (Findings, Sightlines); Michael Stege (Key Account Manager Metzeler Schlafsysteme); and war journalist Till Mayer.
Additionally, we will be publishing an interview with director and activist Masao Adachi, whose film Revolution+1 will be shown as an international premiere in this year’s programme; the magazine will also include the opening lecture of our 2023 conference, which will be given by political theorist Isabell Lorey (Democracy in the Political Present).
Many contributions can already be found in the online magazine of Berlin Critics’ Week. More will follow over the course of the festival.
Podcast Series for Berlin Critics’ Week
Berlin Critics’ Week 2023 will be accompanied by a series of podcasts inspired by this year’s opening conference.
Petra Palmer (Collective Artistic Direction, Berlin Critics’ Week) sat down for a conversation with Isabelle Graw – art historian, curator, publicist, and co-founder and editor of the magazine Texte zur Kunst. Drawing on Graw’s books In Another World and On the Benefits of Friendship, the two discussed topics including the ethics of care in relation to care work, friendship, and solidarity.
Patrick Holzapfel will talk with three guests about what it might mean not to look after the cinema. In a conversation with director Helena Wittmann (Human Flowers of Flesh, Drift) he will philosophize about sleeping through films in the cinema; he will talk about sex in cinema with porn director, producer, and actor Paulita Pappel (Pornfilmfest Berlin); and he will discuss with film critic Lucas Barwenczik (Filmdienst) the question of when he leaves the cinema. We will release these conversations on a rolling basis during Berlin Critics’ Week.
In cooperation with the Winterthur International Short Film Festival, we are also re-releasing – as part of our podcast series – a conversation that took place in November between critic and cultural studies scholar Erika Balsom, festival director Emilie Bujes (Visions du Réel), and film critic Leo Soesanto (Semaine de la Critique, Cannes). The trio discussed questions of care related to curatorial work and their roles within the festival industry.
Explore the online magazine of Berlin Critics’ Week.
All Berlin Critics’ Week podcasts
Read the programme overview at wochederkritik.de
Information about the Conference available at wochederkritik.de
Ticket presale for films and debates on the website of Hackesche Höfe Kinos