KOCHI:
Less than a month after they were screened at the 67th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), six festival films will feature in an upcoming package of curated cinema to be shown on the sidelines of Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) 2016.
The package, titled ‘Berlinale Spotlight’, has been curated by Berlin-based film scholar Ulrich Ziemons and also includes choice selections from the previous three Berlinales. Part of the Kochi Biennale Foundation’s (KBF) ‘Artists’ Cinema’ programme, the package will run from March 10-12 – with screenings starting 6.30 p
m daily at the Pavilion in Cabral Yard.
National award-winning filmmaker Shaji N. Karun will inaugurate the package ahead of the first screening on Friday evening. Goethe-Zentrum Trivandrum Director Syed Ibrahim will be in attendance at the function, which will see felicitations from KBF President Bose Krishnamachari and KBF Secretary Riyas Komu.
The package contains 20 films – chosen from the festival’s ‘Berlinale Shorts (BS)’ and ‘Forum Expanded (FE)’ categories. The six selections from last month’s Berlinale are Estás Vendo Coisas (BS, Brazil, 2017) by Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca, Vincent Toi’s The Crying Conch (BS, Canada, 2017), Jokinen (FE, Finland, 2016) by Laura Horelli, Sokun Al Sulhufat (FE, Qatar/Lebanon, 2016) by Rawane Nassif, Bernd Lützeler’s Camera Threat (FE, Germany, 2017) and Ride Like Lightning, Crash Like Thunder (FE, USA, 2017) by Fern Silva.
“Forum Expanded and Berlinale Shorts are excited to share this programme with audiences in Kochi. The Berlinale Spotlight package hopes to offer a glimpse into the wide variety of cinematic forms presented at the Berlin International Film Festival. The programmes comprise films from the last three editions of the Berlinale, from short to long, narrative to documentary, essayistic to experimental and beyond classification,” said Ziemons, who is one of the co-curators of the Forum Expanded programme.
Headlining the selection of works from previous Berlinales is Balada de um Batraquio, the 2016 film by Leonor Teles on the life of the Romany people in Portugal that won the festival’s top prize – the Golden Bear – for ‘Best Short Film’ at the 66th Berlinale. The 11-minute film will be screened on Saturday evening.
The other included works screened in last year’s ‘Berlinale Shorts’ category are Ayman Nahle’s Now: End of Season (Lebanon/ Syria, 2015), In the Soldier’s Head (USA/France, 2015) by Christine Rebet and personne (Germany, 2016) by Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller.
As well, the package includes four works from the 66th Berlinale’s ‘Forum Expanded’ category: Shelly Silver’s The Lamps (USA, 2015), In the future, they ate from the finest porcelain (Palestine/Denmark/UK/ Qatar, 2015) by Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind, La Cupola (Germany, 2016) by Volker Sattel and Deborah Stratman’s The Illinois Parables (USA, 2016).
Opening the package on Friday is Indonesian film Lembusura (2014) by Wregas Bhanuteja, a Berlinale Short from the 65th Berlinale. The other films from that category to be screened here are David David Muñoz’s El juego del escondite (Spain, 2014) and Symbolic Threats (Germany 2015) by Mischa Leinkauf, Lutz Henke and Matthias Wermke.
The selected works from that year’s ‘Forum Expanded’ category are Have you ever killed a bear? Or Becoming Jamila (Lebanon, 2014) by Marwa Arsanios, Barra Fel Share (Egypt, 2015) by Jasmina Metwaly and Philip Rizk and Felipe Braganca’s Escape from my eyes (Brazil, 2015).
“Partnering with the Berlinale to host this package is a milestone for both the KBF and cinema in Kerala. This is especially true for makers of short films. The unique format is radical and multi-layered. It is too often seen as a vehicle to hone one’s craft before making features, yet has its own unique constraints, peculiarities and merits. The films screened here exemplify the format’s artistic value both as a
storytelling tool and a marker of directorial style,” Komu said.
