After the Sundance Film Festival, the Berlinale opens in virtual mode
Jérémie Renier in "Albatros", by Xavier Beauvois, in the running for the Golden Bear at the 2021 Berlinale. © Guy Ferrandis
Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow |
Elisabeth Lequeret Follow
5 mins
While most festivals, starting with Cannes, had to be canceled in 2020, one of the most important festivals in the world of cinema, the Berlin Film Festival, opened on Monday March 1 ... in virtual mode.
After the Sundance Independent Film Festival in February, it is the first festival of this magnitude to be held non-face-to-face, but with, all the same, a competition of 17 films and a jury composed exclusively of former laureates of the 'Golden Bear.
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In this very special year, film festivals must also reinvent themselves.
The Sundance Independent Film Festival in Utah, United States, had pushed back its dates to finally end on February 3.
The 2021 edition took place mainly in virtual mode, but the organizers still kept some screenings in theaters in Park City and Salt Lake City and in twenty other cities, with a very small number of spectators and added screenings in drive-ins and open-air cinemas.
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Result: during this hybrid edition, but still paid ($ 15 a ticket), 73 feature films were screened, therefore significantly less than the 120 in 2020. On the other hand, Sundance was delighted with the age of festival-goers ( 48% were between 18 and 34 years old) and above all due to the fact that the number of visitors gathered on site and online has more than doubled compared to the previous edition.
With 251,331 views recorded, the festival thinks it has attracted 500,000 spectators in the United States.
In addition, the conferences and discussions, accessible worldwide, brought together around 66,000 people in 120 countries.
For all the offers of the 2021 edition, the festival has a total number of 600,000 spectators, compared to 260,000 spectators in 2020.
The 71st Berlinale completely in virtual mode
Epidemic requires, the Berlinale also saw its dates shifted, from February to early March.
But above all, between March 1 and 5, the festival will take place only in a virtual mode, without stars and without rhinestones.
This 71st edition, participants, whether journalists or film professionals, will experience it at home, in front of their computer.
Carlo Chatrian, artistic director of the Berlinale preferred to bet everything on a two-stage festival: virtual in March and face-to-face in early June: “
We took other hypotheses into consideration, but in the end we found this two-step formula where it is a single program that is presented at two different times.
First for professionals, and secondly, which is also essential for us, to be able to show it in theaters in June.
"
Seventeen films are in competition this year, mainly from Europe, including 5 German films and 3 French films:
Albatros
, by Xavier Beauvois,
Petite Maman
, by Céline Sciamma, and
Memory Box
by Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas .
This is of course the first time that the Franco-Lebanese filmmaker has presented one of her films in such special conditions.
“It's a very strange moment.
And then, it's time for the premiere, precisely.
Suddenly, the film comes out, we see it, he meets people.
Here, this is not the case.
"
For film professionals too, a festival is always a mixture of intense work and more festive moments.
Nothing like this this year, admits Nicolas Brigaud-Robert, exporter: “
Buyers are also spectators, that is to say they see films in cinema conditions, in a theater, with other buyers. , their competitors.
The emulation is done at this time.
These are things which, from a distance, without bringing together the entire profession in the same place, at the same time, is a disadvantage, not only for us producers or exporters, but also for the buyers themselves. even who doubt.
"
So let's go for five days of intensive viewing and zoom conferences.
As for the jury, composed exclusively of former winners of the Golden Bear, the highest award of the festival, it will deliver its verdict this Friday.
The official award ceremony should normally be held in early June, when the mini festival, open to the public, should be held in theaters of the German capital.
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