Some observations on the last-but-one day of the festival, after having seen two dozen or so films, mostly new German arthouse features...1. Many German films look inside, at family, relationship, the self.
2. Most German films (while made by largely Berlin-based creators) aren't set in Berlin -- or any other big city for that matter.
3. German cinematographers love nature, landscape, the forest. "Nature takes back the set," Christian Petzold said in a Goethe-Institut discussion today about his Competition film.
4. Germany's best stage actors are translating well onto the screen.
5. We saw the debuts of a promising next generation of very young actors.
6. Directing is still an exclusively male domain (plus Doris Doerrie).
7. Certain themes or tropes pop up again and again: Happiness & guilt, often intertwined -- criminal and moral guilt & the attempt to find love again in "Mercy", social and individual debt & seeing love when it comes along in "Barbara", familial guilt and responsibility & saving our most important relationships in Hans-Christian Schmid's "Was bleibt" ("Home for the Weekend"). Mental illness (depression, male anorexia, suicide attempts). And secrets everywhere.
The revolution is happening outside this year, as German president Christian Wulff steps down amid scandal on day 9 of the Berlinale (many filmmakers had refused to follow the official invite to his Berlinale reception in protest of various financial scandals). Let's see whether the German films at the Berlinale 2013 will reflect the outside world more directly.
P.S. The photo shows the psychedelic ceiling of Berlin's best cinema, the International on Karl-Marx-Allee.
by Jutta Brendemuehl, Goethe-Institut Toronto
