Part of a series of mini profiles on the movers and shakers that make the Berlinale one of the most important events in the international film calendar: the filmmakers, programmers, curators, industry promoters and visitors.Name & role: Andréa Picard, Film Curator, Toronto International Film Festival
This is my 8th Berlinale.
Your favourite Berlinale section and why: The Forum & Forum Expanded. Begun as an avant-garde riposte to the main festival, the Forum may not be as radical as it once was but it remains the most adventurous and cinephilic section of the Berlinale with its restorations and its offshoot, Forum Expanded. The latter celebrates new forms of cinema and its intersections with the visual arts. Both Forums share a fundamental ethos with Wavelengths, the section I curate for TIFF, founded in honour of Michael Snow.
I’d also be remiss in mentioning the city itself as an important part of my Berlinale experience includes seeing exhibitions in galleries and museums.
Biggest strength of contemporary German film: For the most part, it’s unapologetically concerned with film form and style, and informed by an impassioned cinephelia. It also includes some terrific young female filmmakers like Maren Ade, Valeska Grisebach and Maria Speth (who has a new film in the Forum this year).
Previous Berlinale film you regret not having at TIFF: There will always be films that got away, but I’d rather celebrate the ones that didn’t! I was thrilled by the overwhelming and infectious enthusiasm at TIFF for Ramon Zürcher’s feature debut, The Strange Little Cat, which was the surprise hit of the Forum last year. While some years may be stronger than others, the Berlinale remains an important source of discovery for new German talent.
(German?) Film you are most curious about at this Berlinale: To my previous point, I’m curious to see René Frölke’s "Le beau danger" —a film I was tracking for Wavelengths last year, but which was held up in a rights snafu. Frölke is a young talented German director and cinematographer, virtually unknown in North America.
I’m also very much looking forward to new films by Tsai-Ming liang, Corneliu Porumboiu, Richard Linklater, Friedl vom Gröller, Sophie Filières, Denis Côté, Saodat Ismailova, Ken Jacobs, Gabriel Abrantes, Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal, Heinz Emigholz, Wojciech Bąkowski and a rumoured 70mm presentation. Equally high on my list is the KW’s exhibition of Franz Erhard Walther, whose late career renaissance has been a pure joy to encounter.
interview by Jutta Brendemühl, Toronto
image: Andréa Picard/TIFF
