Rithy Panh’s Everything Will Be Ok
Rithy Panh’s Everything Will Be Ok is selected for Berlinale Competition 2022. In the film we are asked to “imagine that animals took power. Would they behave like humans? Would they make similar mistakes, would they fight for power, rule by terror, devour everything? What would their artworks represent? Would the planet be more at peace?”
The France/Cambodia co-pro doc will world-premiere in Berlin.
Of the overall Competition selection Berlinale Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian notes: “We are happy to have back artists we cherish and whose work is important to us. We are also happy to welcome for the first time in the Competition filmmakers whose films have thrilled us. More than half of the films selected take place in the present day, but only two deal with the current pandemic times. Human and emotional bonds are a common thread – with half of the selection choosing the family as a context for their tales. Almost all films set their tales out of the city centre, in the periphery, in the countryside or they follow the characters in their journeys away from towns.”
Three documentaries (all world prems) are selected for the competitive Encounters section. These are:
- À vendredi, Robinson (See You Friday, Robinson) by Mitra Farahani, France/Switzerland/Iran/Lebanon With Jean-Luc Godard, Ebrahim Golestan
- Journal d’Amérique (American Journal) by Arnaud des Pallières, France
- MUTZENBACHER by Ruth Beckermann Austria
“We consider Encounters to be a vibrant competitive section and a safe haven for a community. Here, we tend to invite filmmakers that do not consider cinema as a predefined art form, with a standard that has to be reached, but rather as a field in an ongoing expansion – like the universe we inhabit. After a year and a half spent in not-so-splendid isolation, we are moved by seeing that many filmmakers have chosen dialogue as the most appropriate form to overcome fences, distances and confinements, and they are keen to keep mapping the land we called cinema,” says Berlinale’s Chatrian of Encounters 2021.
Six docs are selected for Berlinale Special. These are:
- 1341 Framim Mehamatzlema Shel Micha Bar-Am (1341 Frames of Love and War) by Ran Tal, Israel/United Kingdom/USA, World premiere
- Eine deutsche Partei (A German Party) by Simon Brückner, Germany, World premiere
- Le chêne (Die Eiche – Mein Zuhause) by Laurent Charbonnier, Michel Seydoux, France, International premiere
- Nothing Lasts Forever by Jason Kohn, USA, World premiere
- Terminal norte (North Terminal) by Lucrecia Martel, Argentina, International premiere short film
- This Much I Know To Be True by Andrew Dominik, United Kingdom, World premiere. With Nick Cave, Warren Ellis
“Berlinale Special makes room mainly to documentaries that are the best way to explore our world and its legacy. From a recording studio during the pandemic to the little-known industry of synthetic diamonds, from a microcosm to be found in and around an old oak tree in France to a controversial political party in Germany, ending with a take on the power and ethics of photography,” writes the festival.
