Tuesday was one of the highlight days at the Berlinale: master director Martin Scorsese was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear for his life's work and was celebrated at a glittering event.
Martin Scorsese at the Berlinale
On Tuesday, the Berlinale celebrated cinema: Martin Scorsese repeatedly invoked the power of making and watching films. Cinema is art.
Earlier, at the completely overcrowded press conference, he had already declared: "Film doesn't die, it changes". Film is the expression of individual voices and it brings the world together. "Sometimes you only see a film once and remember it for the rest of your life."
In his childhood there were no books, but the television showed films and so he discovered the films of Jean Renoir, Kenji Mizoguchi or films from India on the television screen - with commercial breaks. There were hardly any works from early film history in his youth, but fortunately that has changed today. And Martin Scorsese also has a big part to play in this, as he is not only one of the most important directors of his time, but with his Scorsese Foundation he has also made a significant contribution to saving film heritage and making it accessible again.
And when he knowledgeably and passionately evokes the power of cinema, it comes alive for everyone on this very special film festival day. Cinema is not dead ...
Films for children and young people
Just how lively the cinema is can also be experienced at the screenings of children's and youth films at Generation Kplus and 14plus. Whole school classes cheer together when Mona stands in goal in Sieger sein and saves the decisive ball. In Young Hearts, everyone is immediately excited to see whether Elias can finally stand by his love and what can become of Hazal after what she did in Elbogen. This is how cinema should always work as a shared experience. And perhaps a future Martin Scorsese will sit in the audience and discover a love of film.
Panorama: Les gens d'à côté
One of the greats of international cinema is a guest at the Berlinale with two films: Isabelle Huppert plays the leading role in the South Korean competition film Yeohaengjaui pilyo by Hong Sangsoo and in André Téchiné's Panorama feature Les Gens d'á côté . In Les Gens d' á côté, she plays forensics expert Lucie, who lives a very secluded and solitary life after the death of her boyfriend. One day, a young family moves into the house next door and a cautious friendship begins. However, Lucie discovers that her new neighbour Yann is not only an artist, but also a radical anti-police activist with a criminal record. Lucie's certainties become increasingly shaky until one day Yann needs her help.
The film refuses to take a clear stance, it shows both sides. Perhaps it would have benefited from a sharper focus and a more informative background, but the film remains rather lacking in suspense and follows familiar formulas too closely.
The Berlinale bag
After we already had to say goodbye to the Berlinale queue and its communal rituals and book our tickets alone on the computer, a second cherished tradition has been quietly ended this year: The Berlinale bag. Even in the last two years, there was only a sad shrunken version, a belly bag that nobody liked to tie around their waist. But how proudly we carried the large and practical Berlinale bags in the years before. They were a common feature on the underground and everywhere in the city. We could stuff everything into them, from lunch boxes to laptops, and of course the tattered programme booklets.
Everyone had their favourite year, mine was 2009 in red and in a practical landscape format. However, nobody liked the felt bag for the 66th Berlinale; the zip broke during the festival before it fell apart completely.
The upcycled carrier bag, which is now available to buy as a kind of successor, is more stable, as it is made from original banners from the last Berlinale.
