Berlin 2022

There may be no DocSalon at EFM 2022, but today (Feb 15) the focus is on Archive, albeit scaled down from previous years. Experts Adelheid Heftberger (Bundesarchiv), Simon Witter (British Pathé) and researcher/producers Monika Preischl and Elizabeth Klinck preview today's events and explain to Business Doc Europe how the past two years have been a boom time for the sector.

Tine Kugler discusses her feature documentary, which world-premiered at Berlinale. Concerning a boy born on the wrong side of the Berlin tracks (and certainly no angel), the film is audacious, engaging and moving in equal measure, and proves that the bonds of familial love are as powerful within society’s underbelly as anywhere else across the human spectrum.

Italian director Nicolò Bassetti decided to make his documentary Into My Name, which world premiered in Berlinale Panorama, after speaking to his own son, he tells BDE. The film explores the lives of four young friends as they deal with gender transition. It was executive produced by Elliot Page, the Oscar-nominated Canadian actor who came out as transgender in 2020.

Filmmakers Amélie van Elmbt and Maya Duverdier offer an intriguing look behind the plaster dust and scaffolding of New York's iconic Chelsea Hotel as they talk with a handful of the remaining residents, all frustrated and often angry about having to live in a building site, but all aware of their part and place in the story of this bohemian institution.

Alain Gomis’ documentary on Thelonious Monk, which world-premiered in Berlinale Forum, is like a diamond in the rough, unpolished but of incredible valuable, showing the legendary jazz musician in his truest form. It depicts a man who doesn’t care about presence, fame and glory, interpretations of his music, or others' opinions. He just cares about music.

Gazing…Unseeing, the short film by Mohamed Abdelkarim which world premiered in Berlin’s Forum Expanded section, has a similar feel to Chris Marker’s classic La Jetée (1962), not so much on its aesthetics, “but in the approach to narrative and in the melding of reality and fiction,” the director explains.

The recent Oscar nomination for Austrian-based doc sales outfit Autlook for Writing With Fire (pictured) continues the company’s impressive awards run. It follows on from such other Autlook titles such as For Sama and Of Fathers And Sons which have been prominent in past awards campaigns. Company CEO Salma Abdalla talks docs, sales and award strategies to BDE.

Rithy Panh’s Everything Will Be Ok in Main Competition, three world premiere documentaries in Encounters and six docs in Berlinale Special section, including Lucrecia Martel’s Terminal norte (North Terminal) and a world prem of Andrew Dominik’s This Much I Know To Be True, with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

Raul Domingues’ new feature documentary was shot in the fields and forests surrounding the family farm in Portugal and its main character - that tough, gnarled-looking old woman still carrying out back-breaking work - is the director’s grandmother. There is nothing easy about the lifestyle Domingues depicts, but his love for the land is apparent in every frame of the doc.

“It’s a meditation on trans humanity, and I’ve never seen another film like it,” comments Canadian actor, producer and activist Elliot Page about Nicolò Bassetti’s new film, a coming-of-age story about four friends who share important turning points in their lives and their gender transition. The film is set to world premiere in Berlinale Panorama.