Berlin 2022

When he appeared on stage this weekend for the world premiere of Myanmar Diaries, the filmmaker was in a mask and dark glasses. Even in Germany, he was still wary about the long reach of the Myanmar junta who took over the country in last year’s brutal military coup. Interviewed by BDE in the Berlinale Palest, the filmmaker is showing his face but politely explains he can’t share his identity.

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.

Seldom is a hybrid documentary as clear-cut as Une fleur à la bouche by French director Éric Baudelaire, world-premiering in Berlin Forum. Preceded by images of the world’s largest flower market, a 1923 play by Pirandello suddenly appears as a reflection on the nature of documentaries. Are they, in essence, escapist distractions? Or rather, reminders of the value of life?

Oscar-nominated US director Daniel Raim was around 11 or 12-years-old, visiting his grandparents when he first watched Norman Jewison’s movie version of Fiddler On The Roof (1971), the subject of his new documentary Fiddler’s Journey To The Big Screen (screening in the EFM). Raim talks to BDE about the enduring legacy of Jewison’s masterpiece.

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.

Like so many documentaries made over the past few years, the spectre of Covid hangs over Constantin Wulff’s For the Many: The Vienna Chamber of Labour. But in this instance it actually helps to reinforce the good works and compassionate intent of the Chamber of Labour (AK), as this official legal representative for employees acts as the daily point of contact for people who are fighting for their rights within the workplace.

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.

Due to his advanced age and the difficulty of travelling in the pandemic era, renowned Israeli photographer Micha Bar-Am wasn’t able make it to Berlin (where he was born in 1930) for the premiere of Ran Tal’s new film about him. Nonetheless, director Tal tells BDE that Berlinale is the perfect setting for the film’s launch. Bar-Am’s family lived in Germany for many generations. He saw himself as a German boy. His son lives there today.

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.

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.