Berlin/EFM 2023

The Ukrainian/German filmmaker team were making a feature documentary about the former US military base at Schweinfurt in mid-Germany when it was re-purposed in Spring 2022 to house displaced mothers and children who had fled the war in Ukraine. In their poignantly titled short doc, in equal part playful and melancholic, we see the world through the eyes of the children now living on the compound.

The 28 films (10 docs) that make up the main programme of 53rd Berlinale Forum “celebrate the diversity of cinematic forms, approaches and narratives and explore the predicaments of the past and present in unflinching fashion,” writes the festival. The selection includes new docs by French Claire Simon, Polish Tomasz Wolski and Paris-based Iranian filmmaker Mehran Tamadon.

Before the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, five kids from Donbas were transported to the Himalayas, away from the conflict and the bombs and the ruins, and were briefly shown a glimpse of paradise. After they returned, full scale war broke out. “This film is about this last light of teenagers from this generation before the darkness swallows their dreams,” director Kovalenko tells BDE.

February 17 saw the launch at EFM of the Belarusian Independent Film Academy (BIFA) to give voice to independent artists from Belarus working in the film industry. Co-founder Volia Chajkouskaya explained that the need to found BIFA was clear following the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February, and how “a period of unprecedented mass repression” and “rigged elections” in Belarus convinced the country’s independent filmmakers to “reunite” and “to oppose any form of state collaboration.”

Nicolas Philibert wins top Berlinale prize for Sur l’Adamant, his film about a unique day-care centre in Paris. Tatiana Huezo’s El eco (The Echo) wins The Documentary Award and Best Director in Encounters. The GWFF First Feature Award, endowed with a whopping €50,000 was picked up by Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann for The Klezmer Project. All documentary prizes and special mentions…

The German feature doc follows workers cleaning up nuclear power plants in France. It’s tough, itinerant work, exposing them to radiation, potentially dangerous for their health and entailing huge amounts of travel. “Following these nomadic workers, we needed also to be nomads,” Friedrich explains why they hired their own camper van which they worked out of, and slept in, during production.

Seven doc titles including Ukrainian Alisa Kovalenko’s We Will Not Fade Away, about five teenagers living in the conflict-ridden Donbas region of Ukraine who are given brief respite from reality when they are sent on a Himalayan expedition. The Special title Kiss the Future documents how the Dublin band U2 were enlisted to help shine a light on the seemingly forgotten citizens of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War.

In an absorbing, challenging and beautifully shot film, a passionate tight-knit group of young Syrian women embark upon on a radical and perhaps controversial project, producing a play that details and exposes the culture of misogyny and sexual abuse that has been part of the everyday lives of women in their country for generations.

The Netherlands-based artist and filmmaker discusses her latest film, world-premiering in Berlin, which juxtaposes Dutch archive of working life from a century ago with letters sent to her in 1980s by her late father. “Basically, it was our only contact,” Tan says of her father’s letters. “For the first five to ten years that I lived in Europe, there was this weekly rhythm. I always wrote on Thursdays…They would also reply very faithfully.”

The recent EFM Baltic Doc Rough Cut Showcase promoted new non-fiction feature projects nearing completion. Lithuanian Arturas Jevdokimovas’ new doc project promises to portray the full life cycle of a Christmas tree, beginning with the picking of a pine cone in the Georgian mountains and planting in Denmark, until its inevitable death in a waste container. BDE reports.