Docs are again in the ascendant during Berlinale Panorama and the competitive Encounters section.
In Panorama, the festival observes how “the 2021 documentaries provide first person narratives, character studies and fictional reflections on documentary filmmaking,” citing North By Current in which Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his family in the American hinterland to follow a family reconciliation after a tragic loss, and where where he reflects on transgender masculinity.
In Dirty Feathers Carlos Alfonso Corral depicts the hardships and hopes of his homeless protagonists who live on the streets of the border towns of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. The festival describes his film as “an emphatic portrait of parents-to-be, daughters and veterans as they struggle for survival on the margins of society.”
Meanwhile, in the Japanese fiction film Yuko No Tenbin (A Balance), Yujiro Harumoto “addresses the fine balancing act that exists in documentary filmmaking between real and cinematic truths and asks whether it is permissible to play one off against the other.”
Comments Panorama head Michael Stütz: “2021 is characterised by combative, political cinema. The cinematic gazes of strong female directors, critical new cinema from the Middle East, as well as Indigenous and queer narratives are setting clear focal points in the Panorama…The filmmakers are taking a stand with their observations, reflecting on individual conflicts and collective trauma while also questioning political and interpersonal power relations and challenging others to respond.”
Panorama 2021 documentary selections:
Dirty Feathers by Carlos Alfonso Corral
USA / Mexico, World premiere, debut film
On the streets of border towns El Paso and Ciudad Juárez we meet people living without a home. In intimate, unbiased black-and-white images, the film captures their everyday lives on the streets, as well as their hopes and their faith.
Genderation by Monika Treut
Germany, World prem
20 years after Gendernauts, Monika Treut seeks out the pioneers of the transgender movement back then to find out how their lives and their activism have evolved, how they have grown into their identities and how their energy continues to have an impact today.
Miguel’s War by Eliane Raheb
Lebanon/Germany/Spain, World prem
A portrait of a gay man who confronts the ghosts of his past. After fleeing war and repression 37 years ago, Miguel returns to Lebanon where he traces hidden longings, unrequited love and tormenting feelings of guilt.
North By Current by Angelo Madsen Minax
USA, World prem
The unexplained death of his niece leads the director back to his family. His investigation of injustice and the arbitrariness of officialdom turns into cathartic family therapy. A personal essay about motherhood, grieving and transgender masculinity.
A Última Floresta (The Last Forest) by Luiz Bolognesi
Brazil, World prem
In powerful images, alternating between documentary observation and staged sequences, and dense soundscapes, Luiz Bolognesi documents the Indigenous community of the Yanomami and depicts their threatened natural environment in the Amazon rainforest.
Yuko No Tenbin (A Balance) by Yujiro Harumoto
Japan
In her new documentary, Yuko wants to tell the true story behind the scandal of a relationship between a female student and her teacher. When she learns about her own father’s affair with one of his students, she has to rethink her principles.
Berlinale Encounters
The competitive section Encounters was introduced in 2020 with a goal to support new voices in cinema and to give more room for diverse narrative and documentary forms in the official selection. A three-member jury will choose the winners for Best Film, Best Director and a Special Jury Award, and will announce them during the Berlinale Industry Event in March. This year’s line-up comprises twelve titles from 16 countries, of which seven are first features. Three documentaries are in the selection.
“Each film in the second edition of Encounters is a line that crosses an unknown field,” says Berlinale’s Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian. “If something relates to these very diverse cinematic achievements, it is a sense of discovery. Like the Lumière brothers 125 years later. These films want to take us to places where we will learn something about the world, humankind and maybe about ourselves too. In a time, where trips are almost always cancelled, cinema regains its function.”
Encounters documentary selections:
As I Want by Samaher Alqadi.
Egypt/France/Norway/Palestine
World premiere, debut
Nous (We) by Alice Diop.
France
World prem
Rock Bottom Riser by Fern Silva.
USA
World prem, experimental film, debut film
