From a global premiere at the Toronto Festival, it was celebrated by an enormous ovation at the festival in New York, then Oscar-nominated for best documentary movie, and finally crowned with the audience award for best documentary movie at the Berlinale Panorama. Some consider "I Am Not Your Negro", directed by American director Raoul Peck, to be the most important documentary movie produced in 2016.
 

Two directors collaborate to film with a VHS camera , telling a story that combines Islam Chipsy, one of the most famous Egyptian local composers, and Aisha Devi, the contemporary Swiss composer.

Entered in the Panorama section, the documentary Chavela is an interesting portrayal of the most universally acclaimed Mexican singer. Nobody can fail to be affected by her intense biography.

Although the refugee situation is not so much in the spotlight in 2017, displacement and diasporas remain important topics in many of the showcased Berlinale-films, and are worthier of discussion than ever. Perhaps surprisingly, this is especially true in the Chinese context.

Our Berlinale Blogger doesn't agree with where all the prizes went, but the evening itself was an amusing, star-studded event that made a perfect finale to the festival. 

The Berlinale handed out Golden and Silver Bears to eight films out of the 18 entries. The highest award went to the Hungarian production, "On Body and Soul".

Borders can be geographical, physical, psychological, social, biographical, stylistic, financial... the list is endless. 

Which films or particular moments made the 2017 Berlinale Bloggers feel nostalgic or thoughtful? In this article they jointly reflect on the subject of “Now and then”.

With many films at the 2017 Berlinale exploring one’s own role, the way one perceives oneself, and the way one distinguishes oneself from others. 

“I Am Not Your Negro” is steeped in statements about the chasm between white and black America. “The Young Karl Marx” waxes wise about the disparity between the wealthy and the working class. Both draw their existence from the real-life utterings of men concerned with divisions in their society – and in both, words matter. So, for audiences, the timeliness of the phrases and thoughts is contained within.

Films, and the festivals that bring them together, have long performed a crucial task: bridging the gap that separates audiences from other parts of the world.

The biggest compliment that can be directed towards "Call Me By Your Name" is also the simplest one: for 130 minutes, watching viewers don’t just witness a 17-year-old boy become infatuated with his father’s charming new assistant, nor understand it; they feel as though they’re in the exact same situation themselves.

In “My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea” and “Emo the Musical” there’s no dancing, but the two crazy films offer some comic moments. This is perhaps the right attitude at the end of this Berlinale, which has once again proven itself to be highly problem-focused.

A genre film which combines the precise psychology of kidnapping films with solid horror effects, and a “Martial Arthouse” experiment with hard-core fight scenes and fast-paced sequences: “Berlin Syndrome” and “Tiger Girl” conjure up a dangerous Berlin.

Director Hui-chen Huang, producer Diana Chai-wen Lee and editor Jessica Wan Yu Lin came to the Berlinale to present “Small Talk¨, an tender and extremely candid documentary, in the Panorama section. The film observes the director’s mother who is homosexual but was married off at a young age.

The NATIVe programme of films from the Berlinale proved that the Arctic Circle is a cinematically rich world with a vast array of stories to tell.

As a Berlinale Blogger, it's not all about the competition entries - here we look at the art of looking for hidden gems in the programme. 

Álex de la Iglesia presented his new film El Bar, a horror comedy that portrays the struggle for survival by a group of people locked in a bar. 

With "Headbang Lullaby" Hicham Lasri continues his surrealistic reading of the Moroccan history.

Auf der Berlinale gastieren auch Filme, die sonst schwerlich ihren Platz in der Welt finden. Genauso ein Fall ist „Cuatreros“, der Dokumentarfilm der argentinischen Regisseurin Albertina Carri, der in der Sektion Forum gezeigt wurde. 

Filmmaker Fernando Pérez searched over 20 neighbourhoods in Old Havana to find the location for “Últimos días en La Habana”, the film he presented in the Berlinale’s Special section.

Improvised scenes and fast cutting with brief interludes of electronic music: „Tiger Girl“ by Jakob Lass is an alter-ego film à la „Fight Club“. Berlin's answer to „Kill Bill“ with a strong identity of its own. 

Being a young filmmaker is hard work. Not only do you need to have five professions at the same time, fight the overwhelming inertia and still make a living, but the people around you also put a lot of effort into trying to clip your wings. This year's edition of Berlinale Talents brilliantly depicts all this 'friendly' advice.

Despite the success of the classic, “Metropolis”, the science-fiction film has never really been able to make it in Germany. Nevertheless, there have been interesting attempts to keep up with international developments. Now, the Retrospective section of the Berlinale is devoted to the genre.

Mr. Long is a coproduction of Japan/Hong Kong/Taiwan/Germany. The Japanese director Sabu mixes contrasting elements of violence and delicious food with jumps between past and present, depicting a fantastic world where a killer finds a temporary peace through his exchanges with other people, and coincidence and fate return humanity to a lost soul.

"Almost Heaven" – a tender coming-of-age documentary about young undertakers at a funeral home in Hunan Province.

“The Party”, Sally Potter’s latest film, is a political satire that takes a withering look at the progressive left and concludes that all we can do is laugh. Everything goes wrong and it’s very, very funny.

“Nalu on the Border” and “Don't Swallow My Heart, Alligator Girl!”, two films from the Generation programme, tell stories set in Brazilian borderlands.

The Brazilian films "Como nossos pais" and "Vazante" present two different points of view of the role of women in the 19th century and today.

The Berlinale means not only premieres of feature films and documentaries, but also retrospectives. This year's Retrospective is devoted to SF cinema, and you have to agree that it looks impressive – including both classic and exotic titles from the genre.

Margarete Kreuzer’s “Revolution of Sound. Tangerine Dream” documents a German music legend. “Tangerine Dream is science fiction”: Edgar Froese said that himself; nobody could describe the futuristic sound of his music better than the uncontested head of what was for a while the most successful German band on the planet.

Part of an ongoing series of mini profiles on the blog German Film @ Canada on the movers and shakers that make the Berlinale one of the most important events in the international film calendar: the filmmakers, programmers, curators, industry promoters and visitors.
 

Luca Guadagnino’s film “Call me by your name” is the only Italian offering at the Berlinale. It is a shame that it has not been entered for an award. 

Part of an ongoing series of mini profiles on the blog German Film @ Canada on the movers and shakers that make the Berlinale one of the most important events in the international film calendar: the filmmakers, programmers, curators, industry promoters and visitors.

While handsome, “Final Portrait” is never formally daring and rarely exciting. For a film that speaks of art being uncontrollable, surreal and rebellious, it feels a little too tame, too emotionally straightforward.

In „La Reina de España“ („The Queen of Spain“), veteran director Fernando Trueba portrays a country on the cusp of opening itself up to the world following the end of the international embargo against the Franco dictatorship. But the new winds of modernity are nothing more than quaint decoration, as the wounds of the Spanish Civil War remain ever present.

Female characters play a dominant role in the recent films of Chilean director Sebastián Lelio. We saw this at the 2013 Berlinale, where his female-themed film “Gloria” took home awards and was a critical success, and we’ve seen it again this year with “A fantastic woman”. 

What is beauty? In his first feature-length film, “Pieles” – which elicited loud applause from the audience at this year’s Berlinale – director Eduardo Casanova tries to answer this age-old question with a slap in the face to the viewer. 

These two films open this year’s section “German cinema perspectives”: “Gabi” and “Back For Good” are mini-treatises on the subject of identity – women’s identities, in both cases.

In „Helle Nächte“ macht Regisseur Thomas Arslan mit unprätentiösen, langen Szenen erfahrbar, wie sehr der Vater Michael seinen Sohn Louis dadurch verletzt hat, dass er lange abwesend war. Das ist mitreißend und berührend.

What is being loved? And where is the line between that and sex? These are the questions been asked of the three characters in “Close Knit”, Naoko Ogigami’s fourth appearance at the Berlin Film Festival.

​February 9th, the Berlin International Film Festival is here. It's a clear day and the temperature is -3℃. Last night Potsdamer Platz was busy with preparations for the event, but today it is quietly waiting for the festival to begin. This will be the first time I have participated in the Berlin International Film Festival so I want to absorb as much of this scene as possible.

Since its formation in 1951, the films in Berlinale's official competition have taken viewers on a journey that ranges much further than the trip from their home to the cinema.

„Es war einmal in Deutschland“ erzählt von Menschen, die nach dem Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges den Versuch wagten, sich wieder ein Leben in Deutschland aufzubauen – an der Seite derer, die sie hatten auslöschen wollen.

"Ciao Ciao" portrays the reverse culture shock experienced by a young girl who returns from the megacity of Guangzhou to her hometown in Yunnan.

A migrant worker returns to his hometown, a godforsaken region strewn with ruined buildings and forlorn-looking streets, which feels more like a ghost town than home.

For Australians, “telly” is a regularly used term for the small screen. When Melbournian in New York Naomi (Emily Browning) slips it into a conversation, however, it causes the American son of her mother’s college roommate, Buddy (Jason Schwartzman), to laughingly call for a translator.

I’ve been to festivals before in my home country, Scotland, so I knew a little bit of what to expect, but the Berlinale is a totally different beast to anything hosted in Edinburgh or Glasgow.

‘Danny!’ a mass of people yells as a man enters a building via a side entrance. ‘Diego!’ someone exclaims as an actor takes his seat in a crowded theatre. At one of the biggest film festivals in the world, star spotting both on and off the red carpet outside of the Berlinale Palast is a regular occurrence.

“Django”, the film about the celebrated jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, opened the Berlinale. Nevertheless, this biopic focuses less on his musical abilities – and instead concentrates on depicting his life as the son of a Sinti family during the Second World War.

Everyone says it’s the favourite. And it is almost inevitable: Aki Kaurismaki is the quintessential “festival” director – one of those directors both jury and public can’t help but love.

What brings an Australian dog to Berlin? When the pooch in the spotlight is a rust-coloured kelpie known for his wandering ways, that’s a surprisingly easy question to answer. Six years after the first film enjoyed its world premiere in Germany, the sequel returns to unleash another account of Red Dog’s exploits.

Filmmaker Hui-chen Huang shows her personal journey towards reconciliation of her childhood. It is also an analysis of her encompassing society’s connection to gender equality and varying identities and sexual orientations.

 

Once again, the international film world will be all about bears for the next ten days, as the Berlinale 2017 has begun. 

Of the 24 films presented in this year's competition or out of competition, no less than five are set in the world of the arts. Escapism? Or a sign of the times? 

Part of a series of mini profiles on the movers and shakers that make the Berlinale one of the most important events in the international film calendar: the filmmakers, programmers, industry promoters and visitors. 

Kino ist anders als die anderen Künste. "Final Portrait" von Stanley Tucci erzählt viel mehr als die Geschichte des berühmten Schweizer Künstlers Alberto Giacometti.

The director Davi Pretto takes us on a journey to Brazil’s rural south. Shown in the Forum section, his film is about the powerlessness of the individual in the face of land speculation and the tough reality of rural life – and features the aesthetics of a western. 

Alexanderplatz, 9 a.m. Thursday 9 February 2017. We are sitting on a train on the U2 line towards Potsdamer Platz. Normally, all of the passengers would be looking into their mobiles. However, a gentleman next to us is reading a newspaper. The page is open on an article entitled “The most eagerly awaited stars in Berlin”.

Part of an ongoing series of mini profiles on the blog “German Film @ Canada” on the movers and shakers that make the Berlinale one of the most important events in the international film calendar: the filmmakers, actors, curators, industry promoters and visitors.

TV has carved out its place at most major international festivals and the Berlinale has been at the forefront of the new wave. 

2017 does not shape up to have a record German showing at the Berlinale. While 2016 was a great overall Berlinale year with Meryl Streep as opinionated jury president, a George Clooney-starring new Coen brothers film as opener, and Fassbinder-cum-Hollywood cinematographer Michael Ballhaus as the homage honouree --an outstanding German festival year it wasn’t by any stretch. 

Eduardo Valente, Brasilien-Delegierter der Berlinale, spricht im Interview über die Bedeutung der Festivals für das brasilianische Kino und das Bild, das man sich im Ausland von Brasilien macht.