Steven Spielberg Presents Bono With Berlin Film Festival’s Honorary Golden Bear

U2 frontman Bono was presented with the Berlin Film Festival’s Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement by Steven Spielberg, who made a surprise appearance at the rousing special ceremony on Tuesday.

Or maybe it was the other way around. I forget. You’d have to ask somebody who gives a Scheiße.

What To Expect?

The same pointed political messages, the same leftist championing of disturbing themes, the same provocative (yawn) political exhibitionism from woke virtue signaling political stooges everywhere. What to expect? The same procedure as every year, James.

Berlinale: What to expect at the 2023 Berlin film festival – A look at the highlights of the Berlinale, from the stars on the red carpet to the competition for the Golden and Silver Bears, and the festival’s focus on Ukraine and Iran...

The festival publishes detailed statistics related to gender diversity. Only six films in the competition are directed by women; but taken together, 38.7% of the current productions are directed by women, and 4% of them by non-binary filmmakers.

While there are not any African titles in the main competition, sections such as Panorama and Forum feature several works from the continent.

Sean Penn’s Ukraine Doc Won’t Be Competing!

It’s that good. Just like the Berlin International Film Festival itself. They’re both so good they’re for the greater good.

Too bad their films are always so no good.

The Berlin International Film Festival unveiled the competition lineup for its 2023 edition on Monday morning, naming the 18 movies that will compete for the coveted Gold and Silver Bears at the 73rd Berlinale…

Berlin 2023, taking place a year after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, will have a major focus on Ukraine. Even the festival’s official pin will be in the Ukraine colors of blue and yellow…

In a late addition, Superpower, Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman’s documentary on Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Russian invasion of the country and the ongoing war, will have its world premiere in Berlin’s out-of-competition Berlinale Special section.

I Had No Idea He Was Already Dead

Although if you watch any of his last few films…

Berlin film fest gives Spielberg lifetime achievement award – Steven Spielberg will be honored for his life’s work at the Berlin International Film Festival in February.

Festival organizers said Tuesday that the 75-year-old American director, producer and screenwriter will be awarded an honorary Golden Bear, the annual event’s top prize, for a body of work that comprises more than 100 movies and series.

Couldn’t They Just Cancel It Altogether?

Please? For health reasons? And then there’s COVID too.

Berlin Shortens Film Festival, Requires Vaccination and Testing – The 2022 Berlinale hopes new COVID-19 restrictions will allow it to have in-person screenings and events in February.

The Berlin International Film Festival has cut three days off its official screening schedule for 2022 and introduced new coronavirus measures, requiring attendees to be both fully vaccinated or recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection, plus show a recent negative COVID test.

Berlin 2022 will now run Feb. 10-16, with the festival’s Gold and Silver Bear honors handed out on Wednesday, Feb. 16. The final four days of the festival, Feb. 17-20, will feature repeat screenings of festival titles in cinemas around the German capital. Traditionally, Berlin sets aside one day for these “public screenings.”

Who Would Have Thought That Possible?

That the film guru in charge of the Berlin Film Festival’s propaganda efforts from 1951 until 1976 was also closely involved with the Nazis’ film propaganda efforts, I mean.

Nazi

Ex-Nazis in Germany? In the 1950s? How could that be possible?

Will the horrors never cease? First all the crappy movies. Now we find out that the whole shebang is Nazi-verseucht (infected). Let’s call the whole thing off.

The Berlin Film Festival turns 70 this year, but plans for the anniversary celebration have been overshadowed by new revelations that Alfred Bauer, Berlin’s first festival director, had deep ties to the Nazis.

33% More Women Directors?

Fine with me. Just as long as they can ensure that 97% of the movies shown at the Berlinale remain as crappy as they’ve always been.

Women

This morning’s Berlinale Competition line-up announcement featured 33% films (six of 18) with women directors, including one project, DAU. Natasha, which is co-directed by a man and a woman (Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel).

That’s a drop on last year’s percentage of 41%, when seven of 17 pics selected were from female filmmakers (the figure is seven of 16, 44%, if you don’t count Zhang Yimou’s One Second, which was pulled before it screened).

Still, the Berlin fest continues to compare favourably to the other major European festivals. In 2019, Venice featured just two women directors of the 21 films in its Competition (less than 10%), while Cannes selected four of 21 (19%).

Berlin Competition Lineup: Kelly Reichardt, Sally Potter, Abel Ferrara, Christian Petzold; Disney’s ‘Onward’ & Hillary Clinton Also Heading To Fest

How Sexist Or Something

The Berlin International Film Festival will sign the 50/50 by 2020 gender parity pledge,

Gender

So, like, let me get this straight. You are ASSuming that there are only TWO genders or what, Herr Dieter Kosslick with the dopey hat? You’re going to get letters, pal. Some might have explosives in them, too.

At first I thought they meant 50/50 with regard to the quality of the films they show here at the Berlinale. You know, 50 percent crappy and the other 50 percent really crappy? But I was way off, as usual.

The 50/50 by 2020 pledge does not mandate gender quotas, but calls for festivals to strive for gender parity in top management and for them to publish figures on the gender of the directors of films submitted every year.

German Of The Day: Kontinuität

That means continuity. And that is what the Berlinale Film Festival is famous for.

Berlinale

Take this year’s Gold Bear winner, for instance. Please. “Touch Me Not” is a Romanian film about a woman “struggling with intimacy issues and learning to be comfortable with her body.” And it is a work of cineastic Kunst with sex scenes so explicit and images so disgusting that many viewers had to leave the theater during the viewing.

Continuity, like I said. The Berlinale is first and foremost a political event. And, of course, we all know what kind of political event political events in the film industry must be. Radical is good. Ugly is good. Leftist moral revisionism is good. Porno marketed as art to a willing, enabling (see #MeToo) jury of Hollywooedesque film elitists is good.

And this year’s Golden Bear winner, just like the Golden Bear winner every year, has already been long forgotten by THE REST OF US before the Berlinale trappings have been removed and packed away for next year’s show.

Während des Festivals hatte das auch mit deutschem Geld realisierte Werk die Kritiker gespalten. Denn darin sind detailreich alle Spielarten menschlicher Sexualität zu sehen, es gibt den Besuch in einem Sado-Maso-Club, auch behinderte Menschen sind dabei.