With the Competition lineup all set, one more section of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival (February 7 through 17) is now complete: Panorama. Following last week’s announcement of the section’s narrative features, today sees the full lineup for Panorama Dokumente.
But first, there’s been one newly announced addition to the Panorama Special program, Ayer no termina nunca (Yesterday Never Ends) by Isabel Coixet. Says the festival: “It’s a day in April 2017. Spain is at the lowest point of the crisis, more than seven million people are unemployed. A couple meet at their son’s grave, which has to make way for a new casino town. Anger, hatred and bitterness erupt. A nightmarish film that goes far beyond personal grief to evoke the end of a society.”
On to the Panorama Dokumente, with occasional notes from the festival:
Art/Violence (Palestinian Territories / USA). By Udi Aloni, Batoul Taleb, Mariam Abu Khaled. World Premiere. “On April 4, 2011, Palestinian-Jewish actor, director and peace activist Juliano Mer-Khamis was assassinated outside the Freedom Theatre, a project once launched by his mother in Jenin Refugee Camp. Yet his students refuse to give up: ‘Juliano put us on stage and we will stay on stage.'”
Bambi (France). By Sébastien Lifshitz. World Premiere.
Belleville Baby (Sweden). By Mia Engberg. International Premiere.
Born This Way (USA). By Shaun Kadlec and Deb Tullmann. World Premiere. “Like almost everywhere in the world, gays and lesbians in Cameroon flee to the safety of the city where activists have built up a centre to protect them against a homophobia that threatens their existence. Lawyer Alice Nkom tirelessly fights for their legal representation.”
EXPOSED (USA). By Beth B. With Jeff Solomon, Lou Cubillo, Keith Reamer, and Amanda Scarmozino. World Premiere. A “look at New York’s neo-burlesque scene that has reinvented the classic striptease, which has usually catered to the male gaze, and so exposes common gender clichés in a rather cryptic, humorous and at times shocking fashion.”
Fifi az khoshhali zooze mikeshad (Fifi Howls from Happiness, USA). By Mitra Farahani. World Premiere.
La maison de la radio (France / Japan). By Nicolas Philibert. World Premiere. “Philibert has always been fascinated by the ‘blind’ medium of radio and its ability to fire the imagination. Millions share this passion. For many, radio lends life a rhythm and structure, bringing—between kitchen and bathroom—the world to their homes. With this work, Philibert pays tribute to its diligent makers by bringing the invisible to the screen. And so achieves what every filmmaker seeks.”
Narco Cultura (USA). By Shaul Schwarz. European Premiere. “The brutality of Mexican drug lords—’narcos’—has led to a new pop genre: young people in Mexico and the USA dance to the violence-glorifying music of these new heroes. A disturbing look at a region where graveyards are more magnificent than towns.”
Out in Ost-Berlin – Lesben und Schwule in der DDR (Out in East Berlin – Lesbians and Gays in the GDR, Germany). By Jochen Hick. World Premiere.
Parade (France / USA). By Olivier Meyrou. World Premiere.
Paul Bowles: The Cage Door is Always Open (Switzerland). By Daniel Young. With Paul Bowles, Gore Vidal, John Waters, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Ira Cohen. European Premiere.
Salma (Great Britain). By Kim Longinotto. International Premiere. “When her Moslem parents in southern India locked Salma up at the age of thirteen and forced her to marry, she rebelled by writing poems that she had to smuggle out. Today she is a famous Tamil poet who challenges rural traditions.”
TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard (Sweden). By Simon Klose. World Premiere. “In the early years of the 21st century, the Pirate Bay, a Swedish file sharing platform that allows Internet users to share films and music, grew enormously. The trial against the founders appears to be an unequal fight between Hollywood and three open-minded computer hackers, who come across very differently in Klose’s film than Hollywood’s media lawyers depict them. The film will be released for free online at the same time as it premieres in Panorama.”
More on the 2013 lineups: Sundance (rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and Slamdance, Rotterdam (rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and Berlin (rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11), and SXSW (round 1).
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