The feature documentary Superpower by Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman will world premiere in Berlin as a Special Gala presentation one year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The project, featuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, commenced in later February 2022 while Penn was already in Kyiv shooting a separate documentary.
“This past year the weight of the real world has had a significant impact on people’s lives. Among the films premiering this year at the festival there is one in particular that witnesses the shock we all felt,” writes the Berlinale. “More than a documentary, Superpower is the chronicle of a film project that reality forced to change in to something less controllable but more meaningful. In a festival that will take place one year after the Russian invasion in Ukraine, it is important to show the film that Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman made under such difficult conditions. Like their colleagues who risked their lives in order to testify the cruelty of the war, they prove once more that art can inspire action worldwide.”
Meanwhile, the feature doc Sur l’Adamant (On the Adamant, France / Japan 2022, world premiere) by Nicolas Philibert has been selected for Main Competition. “The Adamant is a unique day care centre, a floating structure,” say the film notes. “Located on the Seine in the heart of Paris, it welcomes adults suffering from mental disorders, offering them care that grounds them in time and space, and helps them to recover or keep up their spirits. The team running it is one of those that try to resist the deterioration and dehumanization of psychiatry as best it can. The film invites us to board it and meet the patients and caregivers who invent its life day to day.”
“More than ever, this year’s selection aims to be as open as possible to all cinematic forms. Animated films and documentary, comedy and melodrama, dramas and period films, films that rely on great performances or are driven by ‘natural’ actors, in each of the 18 titles one can hear a unique voice. And behind these important stories – even if tinged with a note of blue – the beauty of the world still resonates,” writes the festival of the Competition selection.
