On Thursday, February 10, the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival opened in Germany.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the format of the event has been slightly changed.

Until February 16, film crews will present their films in person at a number of cinemas in Berlin.

On the evening of the 16th, the awards ceremony will take place.

From February 17 to February 20, the cinemas will host re-screenings of festival films.

At the same time, other events parallel to the Berlinale will be moved online.

Among them are the European Film Market and the Berlin Co-production Market.

“By organizing the Berlinale 2022, we want to give filmmakers and viewers the opportunity to meet again and exchange ideas in person, immerse themselves in the world of cinema, discuss films, and get inspired and motivated,” said Mariette Rissenbeck, Executive Director of the festival.

According to Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian, the films selected for the Berlinale program describe the world as it is today, as it has changed during the pandemic, as well as how it was before it and how it could have been.

“The desire to reproduce what we experienced (and we, the inhabitants of planet Earth, have never been so far from each other, but at the same time so similar in lifestyle), has led to the fact that many films reflect the power of imagination, humor , emotions and physical confrontations, sometimes passionate, sometimes furious.

Masters and debutants are on the same wavelength, ready to challenge the prevailing uniformity, telling stories that surprise with their stylistic freedom and craving for experimentation,” Shatrian said.

The main competition of the festival included 18 films, on which filmmakers from 15 countries worked.

These films will compete for the main awards of the Berlinale - "Golden" and "Silver Bears".

The winners will be determined by a jury led by director and screenwriter M. Night Shyamalan, known for his projects The Sixth Sense, Split and Glass.

Also on the panel of judges are directors Karim Ainuz, Anna Zora Berashed, Tzitsi Dangarembga, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, producer Said Ben Said and actress Connie Nielsen.

Among the films of the main competition is the film of the winner of the Berlinale award for the film "Good Job" Claire Denis - Avec amour et acharnement with Juliette Binoche in the title role.

The actress played a woman in a relationship who is happy with everything until she meets her ex-lover.

  • © Shot from the film "Peter von Kant" (2022)

This tape will compete with the new drama by Francois Ozon "Peter von Kant" about a successful film director who helps build a career for his lover.

He, having become famous, throws the main character.

The director has to deal with his inner demons.

Another winner of the Berlinale of previous years, Andreas Dresen, will present the drama Rabiye Kurnaz gegen George W. Bush.

In the center of the plot is a woman forced to fight for the freedom of her son, who is accused of organizing the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 and one of the first sent to prison in Guantanamo Bay.

Also in the competition are works by Carla Simone Pipo (Alcarras), Michael Koch (Piece of Heaven), Riti Panha (Everything will be fine), Ursula Mayer (La ligne), Paolo Taviani (Leonora addio), Mikael Hers ( "Passengers of the Night"), Ulrich Seidl ("Rimini"), Hon San-su ("Writer's Film") and other directors.

The Panorama section features 19 feature films and ten documentaries.

The tapes, in particular, are devoted to problems in the family, growing up, representatives of the LGBT community, racism, love and other topics affecting modern reality. 

Despite the fact that Russian films were not included in the main competition of the Berlin Film Festival, several films of domestic production are presented in other sections.

For example, the Panorama program includes the full-length debut of the Russian director Mikhail Borodin, Produkty 24‎, filmed with the support of the Ministry of Culture.

The tape is based on real events that took place several years ago in the Golyanovo district of Moscow, where women were kept as slaves in a grocery store for many years.

In addition to Borodin, eight more directors will make their full-length debuts in the Panorama section. 

The main program of the Forum included 27 films.

There are no Russian films among them, but there is a Kazakh film "Akyn".

The film was directed by Darezhan Omirbaev, the name of the film is translated from Kazakh as “Poet”.

It touches upon the theme of art in the modern world of technology and mass consumption of information.

In the center of the plot is a poet living in a world of people indifferent to poetry.

The films of the Forum section also show the problems of emigration from Colombia and Mexico, a portrait of the young Korean generation and a love panorama against the backdrop of the civil war in Lebanon. 

Traditionally, the "Generation" section includes films about children and teenagers.

As part of the Generation 14+ program, the world premiere of the film Sasha Country, filmed by Russian director Yulia Trofimova based on the book of the same name by Gala Uzryutova, will take place.

The action revolves around Sasha, a school graduate who lives without a father.

The young man tries to solve problems with his mother, who wants to impose an unwanted career on Sasha.

According to the plot, the hero falls in love with a girl and goes with her to Kaliningrad. 

The section "Promising German Cinema" included eight films, some of which were produced by filmmakers from India and Romania.

One of the films, Fallada - The Last Chapter, tells about the last years of the life of the German writer Hans Fallada, who authored works in the spirit of critical realism. 

  • © Shot from the filming of the film "Brother in Everything" (2022)

A documentary film by Evgenia and Maxim Arbugaev, filmed jointly with the UK, Haulout became part of the Short Film program.

According to the plot, a man living in the Arctic is facing the problem of global warming.

Another participant in the section is the game painting "Trap" by Russian woman Anastasia Weber.

The tape was prepared jointly with Lithuanian filmmakers.

Trap tells about the life of a young Russian couple who have fun at night and prepare for the Olympics during the day.

The program "Special" included 15 films from 12 countries.

Among the paintings on display is 1341 Framim Mehamatzlema Shel Micha Bar-Am, which tells the story of Israeli photographer Micha Bar-Am.

Another section biopic is Andrew Dominic's This Much I know to be True about Nick Cave.

Also in this program is the film by Peter Flint "Fighting the Ice", in which the main role was played by Nikolai Coster-Waldau.

The action in the picture takes place at the beginning of the 20th century, two researchers hope to find traces of the expedition members who studied Greenland. 

The Encounters section features 15 groundbreaking projects by independent filmmakers.

According to the idea of ​​the festival selectors, each film included in the program assumes the presence of some kind of dialogue - whether it is communication with the audience, a conversation between two artists or a dialogue between the past and the present.

The program included the film "Brother in Everything" by Russian director Alexander Zolotukhin.

In the center of the plot are two brothers.

They are used to overcoming difficulties together, but one day they notice that they are preventing each other from achieving their main goal - to become military pilots.

Also, within the framework of the program, it will be possible to see films shot by filmmakers from Argentina, France, Germany, Rwanda, Greece, Japan and other countries.

The 2022 Berlinale Retrospective is dedicated to the work of actresses Mae West, Rosalind Russell and Carole Lombard.

As part of the festival, 27 films released between 1932 and 1943, during the era of the popularity of Hollywood screwball comedy, will be shown.

Among them are Michael Curtiz's "Four Are a Crowd", Howard Hawks' "His Girl Friday", Alfred Hitchcock's "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and Lowell Sherman's "She Treated Him Foul".

The Berlinale Classics section will show seven restored films by European and Asian filmmakers - Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Werner Hochbaum, Masahiro Synoda, Jiri Menzel, Low E and Ken Russell.