Having deplored the lack of German films at the 66th Berlinale overall and in the Competition in particular, the wealth and smartness of the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section, now in its 15th year, makes up for a lot of that chagrin with its vibrant and diverse outlook. While for years it looked like you couldn’t pay younger filmmakers from/in Germany to make a film in/about Germany, this year they are circling back via the topic of migration and the refugee influx, our joint futures and growing pains. To the point where young French filmmaker Aline Fischer, out of one of the booming German film academies with this graduation work, opens the Perspektive with METEOR STREET, a very Berlin and a very European film (review to follow). More than ever, the Perspektive, as well as the Forum and Panorama, are where the hidden gems and ones-to-watch are, see Anna Zohra Berrached’s career jump from the Perspektive 2013 to the Competition 2016 in my previous post. Highly recommended: two times filmmaker Philip Scheffner (of REVISION fame) with refugee-themed HAVARIE and the Roma-family-moves-to-Berlin AND-EK GHES… I also have my eye on near-future sci-fi WE ARE THE TIDE by newcomer Sebastian Hilger and rough sex migration drama TORO by Martin Hawie, which premiered at the Montreal Film Festival last summer, and the meta-documentary THE AUDITION. More over the next few days as the films premiere.
THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, the first German feature-length biopic on the famous German-Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank, who died in Auschwitz, will premiere in the Generation (youth) section of the Berlinale
