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The good news is that despite the pandemic, there will be a Berlinale again this year.

There will be a competition, there will be a jury to choose a Golden Bear, and as of today we also know who this jury will belong to.

The bad news is that there won't be a Berlinale this year.

If this seems a bit contradictory, look at the facts and judge for yourself. Everything will go as usual in March - only without the audience, who are the salt of the festival.

The Berlinale is divided in time into the market (where films are traded, in normal times parallel to the red carpet, but not noticed by the public) and the film screenings.

This time the market will only take place online, from March 1st to 5th, and the public screenings are to be held from March 9th to 20th.

June will follow in a dozen Berlin cinemas, so the Corona god is kind.

It is a new twist on the hybrid culture model, even if the condition should gradually be called what it is: schizophrenic.

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The Berlinale is therefore expressly not following the path of many smaller festivals that have completely relocated to the internet and where everyone could buy “tickets” for streaming the films.

The Berlinale is the largest public film festival in the world, and an online edition would only be a poor copy;

Ultimately, this also applies to all other festivals that are out of necessity trying their hand at online, but none as much as the Berlinale.

Presumably a Berlinale film: Dominik Graf, Saskia Rosendahl and Tom Schilling filming the movie "Fabian - The Walk to the Dogs"

Source: picture alliance / Geisler-Fotopress

The question is whether this double construct, which is betting that the epidemic will abate, can still be called the Berlinale.

Let's picture it.

The jury comes to Berlin in the first week of March and consists of six previous Golden Bear winners: Mohammad Rasulof (“Because there is no evil”), Nadav Lapid (“Synonymes”), Adila Pintilie (“Touch me not”) ), Ildikó Enyedi ("Body and Soul"), Gianfranco Rosi ("Sea Fire") and Jasmila Zbanic ("Esma's Secret").

She is quartered in a hotel in quarantine and goes to a cinema every day to see two or three films in a closed show;

with the exception of Mohammad Rasulof, whom the Iranian regime does not allow to leave the country because two political trials are pending against him.

In the evening they discuss what they have seen, just like in normal years.

And after five days they agree on the usual bears for best film, best direction and best performance (there are no longer any gender-separated acting awards).

The winners will also be announced immediately;

Wanting to keep them secret until the public Berlinale in June would be unworldly, but only then should they be presented to the winners.

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That means we know who won by the first weekend in March.

But not what won.

At a normal Berlinale, over 300,000 tickets are sold, and every visitor gives their opinion about what they have seen.

This time only the film dealers can see the films (online) as well as 1,600 film journalists who are also granted the online privilege.

They'll write about it right away, just in a completely empty resonance space, since nobody will be able to see the films.

It can get even more paradoxical: some producers (for fear of pirates) will refuse to give their consent to an online demonstration for dealers and critics.

What if a couple of these films win awards?

Only 100 films instead of 400

All sections - from the big competition to forum and panorama to children's films - should take place, with the exception of the retrospective.

However, they have to be prepared for a sometimes radical reduction in their offer: around 400 feature films are shown at a normal Berlinale, this year only around 100. Only the competition remains unscathed: “We see the Berlinale as a galaxy with many planets,” put it Program director Carlo Chatrian presenting the concept.

“But the competition is of course already the sun.” The selection is in its final phase, the films will be announced during the coming week.

Some may still know the Berlin emergency victim.

This was an additional tax on income tax and a tax stamp that had to be stuck on in the Federal Republic from 1948 to 1956 by the sender of a letter in addition to the normal postage.

Let us see the 71st International Film Festival this year as a kind of emergency Berlinale that must take place in order to defend its traditional place in the festival competition and to maintain the morale of the population.

For this, we critics make the one-off sacrifice of spending the dreary Berlin winter, from which we can otherwise break out for two great weeks, completely at home - even if we are already fed up with streaming.