Berlinale

Kurdish feud is warning to the world in Berlinale film Kurtuluş

(Caner Cindoruk as vision-possessed Mesut in Kurtuluş) By Michael Roddy Clan rivalries spiral fatally out of control in a farming and shepherding village in southeastern Turkey that could be any place where tensions between feuding groups end in violence in the Turkish-Kurdish film “Kurtuluş” (Salvation), which had its premiere at the Berlinale on Sunday. In…Read more Kurdish feud is warning to the world in Berlinale film Kurtuluş

Child of the Forest: “Nightborn” picks up where Polanski left off

By Michael Roddy First time Finnish mother Saga (Seidi Haarla) has a problem, and it's not just that her British husband Jon (Rupert Grint, of “Harry Potter” fame) is alien to the local culture or that her grandmother, whose wreck of a house deep in the Finnish woods they've renovated and moved into, warned before…Read more Child of the Forest: “Nightborn” picks up where Polanski left off

A lethal “Succession”-style family in Berlinale’s “Rosebush Pruning”

By Michael Roddy In the Berlinale competition film “Rosebush Pruning”, by Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz (The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão), the first member we meet of a stinking rich and utterly loathesome American family, who've transplanted themselves to obscene levels of luxury in Spain, is son Edward (Callum Turner). He is on a busy…Read more A lethal “Succession”-style family in Berlinale’s “Rosebush Pruning”

Irish Bill Evans film plays the right tune in Berlin

By Michael Roddy One of the hardest tricks to pull off in moviemaking is a fictionalised film based on the career of someone whose music and discs everybody knows and loves, and whose performance by actors who are not musicians is at best hit or miss. “Everybody Digs Bill Evans” neatly avoids that bear trap…Read more Irish Bill Evans film plays the right tune in Berlin

Berlinale opener combines romcom, Kabul’s downfall

(Qodrat (Anwar Hashimi), left, dining with Naru (Shahrbanoo Sadat) in Sadat's Kabul-based rom com at Berlinale) By Michael Roddy It's Valentine's Day in Kabul, in 2021, and ambitious news cameraperson Naru (Shahrbanoo Sadat) is hoping desperately to break through the glass ceiling of misogyny in Afghan society and get to cover some real news instead…Read more Berlinale opener combines romcom, Kabul’s downfall

Director Wenders says films won’t end conflicts

The Berlinale unleashed some of its traditional political intensity on the opening day on Thursday as a panel of international film jurors led by German director Wim Wenders rejected the idea that filmmakers should take a political position on the world's most trenchant conflicts. “We are the counterweight of politics,” Wenders said in response to…Read more Director Wenders says films won’t end conflicts

Norwegian film “Drømmer” wins Golden Bear top prize at Berlinale

Drømmer producers Yngve Sæther, Hege Hauff Hvattum with director Dag Johan Haugerud (centre) The Norwegian film "Drømmer" (Dreams (Sex Love)), directed by Dag Johan Haugerud and starring Ella Øverbye as a 17-year-old schoolgirl who turns the tables on the adults in her world by writing a book about a lesbian affair with her teacher, won…Read more Norwegian film “Drømmer” wins Golden Bear top prize at Berlinale

Do-gooder can’t stop progress, or death, in Jude’s “Kontinental ’25” at Berlinale

A homeless man, dressed in tattered clothes and shouting out swear words at random, packs trash into a carryall as he lurches along the leaf-strewn paths of a forlorn amusement park, whose chief attraction is clunky, animatronic dinosaurs. When he leaves the park and walks into the city of Cluj, in northwestern Romania, he passes…Read more Do-gooder can’t stop progress, or death, in Jude’s “Kontinental ’25” at Berlinale