After an ersatz festival, only via the internet in 2021, the Berlinale returns to red carpets, official screenings and an international jury, chaired by the great American name of thriller M. Night Shyamalan ("Sixth Sense", "Unbreakable") , who will debate "face-to-face".

Eighteen films are in competition until the ceremony on February 16 and it is director François Ozon who opens the ball, a regular at this event where he received the Grand Jury Prize in 2019 for "Thanks to God". .

The most eclectic Stakhanovist of French cinema promises a beautiful story of devouring passion and a (self) portrait of a filmmaker, through a rereading of "Bitter Tears by Petra von Kant", the work of one of his models, the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who died forty years ago.

The presence in the credits of this "Peter von Kant" by the French actress Isabelle Adjani, brings a modest touch of glamor to the start of the festival which is likely to lack it: the big American productions and their processions of stars will be largely lacking in the German capital where the number of contaminations linked to the Omicron variant of Covid-19 is at its highest.

Among the other films in the running to succeed the Golden Bear 2021, awarded to the Romanian Radu Jude, a promotion of eighteen filmmakers including seven directors, with a particularly marked presence of French cinema.

The Berlinale finds in competition well-known personalities, sometimes already awarded, like the Italian veteran Paolo Taviani, 90, with "Leonora Addio", his first film since the death of his brother and lifelong sidekick, Vittorio.

They had together won the Golden Bear ten years ago.

The presentation of the first feature film around the attacks of November 13 in Paris, centered on a story by a survivor of the Bataclan, will necessarily be scrutinized.

"Un año, una noche" is signed by the Spaniard Isaki Lacuesta, with the Argentinian Nahuel Perez Biscayart and the French Noémie Merlant.

Filmmaker Claire Denis will be in competition for the first time, for a film co-written with author Christine Angot ("Avec amour et acharnement") and, in general, French cinema and actors (Juliette Binoche at Claire Denis, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Emmanuelle Beart at Mikhaël Hers...) will be well represented.

Bear of honor to Isabelle Huppert

Outside the official competition, the Berlinale awaits the sulphurous king of the Italian "giallo" Dario Argento for a new film "Occhiali Neri", where he once again directs his daughter Asia, or the latest absurd comedy by Frenchman Quentin Dupieux, " Incredible but true".

French actress Isabelle Huppert is to receive an honorary Golden Bear for her entire career.

The arrivals of the film crews and the first words of the jury, which also includes the Japanese filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, the Brazilian Karim Aïnouz or the Franco-Tunisian producer Saïd Ben Saïd, will not make us forget the very precarious health situation in Germany.

Masks, daily tests and gauges were put in place and the organizers had to resolve to plan the competition, which is held over six days against ten usually.

In total, the number of films screened in Berlin is down by 20 to 25%.

But it was high time for the Berlinale to return to a "physical" edition, at the risk of becoming marginalized.

Because if the American festival-goers continue to be chomping at the bit, with a second "virtual" edition of Sundance which has just ended, in Europe, the major meetings of Venice and Cannes were held in theaters in 2021 and are already preparing their next editions on the Lido and the Croisette.

© 2022 AFP