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News 2019

Topics, Dates and New Partners for the Berlin Critics’ Week 2019

In its fifth edition, the Berlin Critics’ Week continues its commitment to bringing together criticism and programming. Together with artists, filmmakers and critics, we want to explore cinema’s potential for resistance when people and identities threaten to disappear, debate the relationship between privilege and artistic invention, and argue over the relationship between feminism and aesthetic practice.

Tickets for all films and debates of the Berlin Critics’ Week are now available. The overview can be accessed via wochederkritik.de.

Tickets for the conference are available on the website of the Volksbühne.

For the fifth edition of the Berlin Critics’ Week, the Verband der deutschen Filmkritik was able to secure two new sponsors: the Hauptstadtkulturfonds and the Goethe-Institut. We are equally pleased by the continued support of the Stiftung Kulturwerk der VG Bild-Kunst, the Rudolf Augstein Stiftung, as well as our partners Hotel Catalonia Berlin Mitte, Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, Universität der Künste Berlin and Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut.

All dates at a glance:

We
Feb 6
4:30 PM
Volksbühne Berlin

CONFERENCE: Intensive Care Cinema
A Dose of Schlingensief, Please – Or, Why the World Cannot Be Saved with Polite Art

Isn’t cinema terribly polite nowadays? Especially when it comes to supposed big-picture filmmaking? The internationally still too little-known work of Christoph Schlingensief is the starting point for a night of debates, lectures and films. Guests from different disciplines discuss trashy art, the limits of cinema and the fun of activism. How can cinema fluster its audience and burst the bubbles of discourse?

Th
Feb 7
8 PM
Hackesche Höfe Kino

RESISTING DISAPPEARANCE

When images begin to flow, existence turns into movement and materiality seems to dissolve, only then is cinema’s potential harnessed. What type of resistance can films offer when people and identities threaten to disappear?

NAKORN-SAWAN
D: Puangsoi Rose Aksornsawang, C: Prapamonton Eiamchan, Jarunun Phantachat, Phumipat Thavornsiri, DoP: Boonyanuch Kraithong, TH/DE 2018, 77 Min., Thai OwEs – EP

GULYABANI
D: Gürcan Keltek, Cast: Zeynep Kumral, DP: Murat Tuncel, Gürcan Keltek, NL/TR 2018, 35 min., Turkish OV w/ English subs – GP

Fr
Feb 8
8 PM

DARK MATTER

We want to see the world, we want to understand it. But doesn’t this desire also contain an element of hegemony? Regarding a cinema of darkness and the politics of images that cannot be made out, but can be guessed, dreamt, felt.

FAUSTO (FAUST)
D+DP: Andrea Bussmann, Cast: Victor Pueyo, Fernando Renjifo, Ziad Chakaroun, Albert Núñez, Gabino Rodríguez, MX/CA 2018, 70 min., Spanish/English/Arabic/French OV w/ English subs – GP

Sa
Feb 9
8 PM

INVENTION WITH BENEFITS

Floating over things, changing perspectives, crafting an essay out of one’s own family: how much privilege is found in inventive storytelling, and how much invention in privilege? Regarding knowledge as power, the craft of lying and self-reflexive storytelling.

MAMAN, MAMAN, MAMAN
D: Lucia Margarita Bauer, DP: Lucia Margarita Bauer, Nora Lawrenz, DE 2019, 37 min., French/German OV w/ English subs – GP

THE GREAT PRETENDER
D: Nathan Silver, Cast: Esther Garrel, Keith Poulson, Maëlle Poésy, Linas Phillips, DP: Sean Price Williams, US 2018, 71 min., English OV – GP

Su
Feb 10
8 PM

EMPATHY FOR VANITY

When a king’s death throes turn him into a laughing stock, and a master director holds sway over everyone during the shoot, then empathy and tunnel vision go hand in hand. A discussion about wilful arrogance and the joyful demise of the art film.

CHAINED FOR LIFE
D: Aaron Schimberg, Cast: Jess Weixler, Adam Pearson, Stephen Plunkett, Charlie Korsmo, DP: Adam J. Minnick, USA 2018, 91 min., English OV – GP

ROI SOLEIL
D: Albert Serra, Cast: Lluís Serrat, DP: Artur Tort, ES/PT 2018, 61 min., w/o dialogue – GP

Tu
Feb 12
8 PM

DELIGHT & DELUSION

To lose one’s head from too much reflection, too many quotations, too much dissent. Cinema as a space for contrasts, the invoking of naivety, traditional role models and the immortal love for all that is unstable.

MAGIC SKIN (MAGIKÓ DÉRMA)
D: Konstantinos Samaras, Cast: Haris Fragoulis, Anthi Efstratiadou, Andreas Kontopoulos, Jenny Theona, Giannis Bezos, DP: Thodoris Mihopoulos, GR 2018, 90 min., Greek OV w/ English subs – IP

We
Feb 13
8 PM

IMPLANT

What do human zoos and golden cages have in common? What about culture and artifice? Change and convention? Regarding films that take people and urban spaces out of their contexts in order to invite reflection on utopias and dystopias.

THE AMBASSADOR’S WIFE
D: Theresa Traore Dahlberg, DP: Iga Mikler, BF/SE 2018, 16 min., French OV w/ English subs – GP

SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS
D: Virgil Vernier, Cast: Dewi Kunetz, Sandra Poitoux, Hugues Njiba-Mukuna, Bruck, Lilith Grasmug, DP: Simon Roca, Tom Harari, FR 2018, 98 min., French OV w/ English subs – GP

Th
Feb 14
8 PM

STAGING FEMINISM

Feminism is omnipresent, ought to be self-evident, yet remains a struggle. But how does it become film? As an object, a mode of production, an aesthetic? Feminism as performance, screening and exhibition.

PRETTY GIRLS DON’T LIE
D: Jovana Reisinger, Cast: Linda Sakallah, Louis Grünwald, Thomas Hauser, Samouil Stoyanov, Maximilian Bungarten, DP: Felix Pflieger, DE 2018, 29 min., German OV w/ English subs

AREN’T YOU HAPPY? (DAS MELANCHOLISCHE MÄDCHEN)
D: Susanne Heinrich, Cast: Marie Rathscheck, David Woźniak, Nicolai Borger, Markus Nechleba, Julian Fricker, DP: Agnesh Pakozdi, DE 2019, 80 min., German OV w/ English subs

Re-runs on Friday, Feb 15

10:00 AM Nakorn-Sawan & Gulyabani
12:15 PM Magic Skin (To magikó dérma)
02:00 PM Fausto (Faust)
03:20 PM The Ambassador’s Wife & Sophia Antipolis
05:30 PM Maman, Maman, Maman & The Great Pretender
07:30 PM pretty girls don’t lie & Aren’t You Happy (Das melancholische Mädchen)
09:30 PM Chained for life & Roi Soleil

Press contact: Jendrik Walendy, presse@wochederkritik.de

Berlin Critics’ Week is organised by the German Film Critics’ Association.