Despite dark times on the world stage, audiences poured back to Berlin’s first post-COVID festival.
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Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale)
02/10/2022
Festival Reviews
73rd Berlinale Awards
Kristen Stewart’s jury awarded the Golden Bear to the French documentary ‘On the Adamant’, about a floating psychiatric hospital on the Seine.
On the Adamant
French documentarian Nicolas Philibert’s latest feature, competing in Berlin, gives voice to the patients in a psychiatric day care centre floating on the Seine.
The Walls of Bergamo
An outstanding, deeply moving documentary that finally addresses the pandemic not simply as a record of a tragedy but a collective trauma needing to be processed as a community.
Love to Love You, Donna Summer
From early days in Boston to the height of her stardom and sudden crash, this affectionate documentary made with major family involvement doesn’t probe deep enough or contextualize her career, but it reminds us that Donna Summer was a terrific performer whose talents were minimized by the moniker “Queen of Disco.”
The Fundraiser
Todd Field’s Tár supplement provides compelling extra notes to his masterfully composed film.
Art College 1994
Painter-filmmaker Liu Jian’s third animated feature (his second in Berlin competition) lacks the bite to capture the painful realities faced by Chinese art school students as their country opened up to the West and capitalist ideals.
And, Towards Happy Alleys
Indian director Sreemoyee Singh’s moving documentary transcends its overly relaxed editing and sometimes dispersive focus.
Suzume
The latest YA fantasy adventure from Japanese anime master Makoto Shinkai is a beautifully written and animated work of the imagination that incorporates elements of ‘Your Name’ and ‘Weathering with You’ and often sails beyond them.
Passages
Passages is a steamy, sensitive, and surprisingly funny look at the complications of modern love.
Living Bad
This companion to Bad Living is a repetitive exploration of deceitful mothers and toxic families that offers no new insights.
ALLENSWORTH
James Benning’s latest, bowing in the Berlin Forum, offers a powerful comment on racial politics in the U.S. in a static-shot portrait of the first settlement to be founded and governed by African-Americans.
Bad Living
The feel bad movie of Berlinale is a bleak and punishing look at familial decay that’s both manipulative and dishonest.
CineVerdict: 20.000 especies de abejas
La historia de sobre un niño de 8 años que siente una creciente desesperación de ser percibido como masculino es extraordinaria por su sensibilidad y percepción. Será un parámetro en la discusión fílmica sobre género, sexualidad e identidad.
Afire
Christian Petzold is in top form with this intimate summer drama that quietly builds to an unexpected, heart-wrenching finale.
In Water
South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo teases all the humour and melancholy out of his young cast in a comedy of awkward manners, bowing in the Berlin sidebar Encounters.
20,000 Species of Bees
Extraordinary for its sensitivity and perception, Estibollz Urresolo Sologuren’s story of an 8-year-old girl’s growing discomfort with being perceived as a boy is a landmark in the filmic discussion of gender, sexuality and identity.
Opponent
Payman Maadi gives another outstanding performance in a deeply layered refugee drama that isn’t always the sum of its parts.
Music
Angela Schanelec returns to Berlin with another weird, challenging film destined to thrive only in ultra-art houses and academic spaces based on its austere approach to narrative enjoyment.
The Plough
French director Philippe Garrel is faithful to his intimist style, working with his three children in a classic tale.
Remembering Every Night
Japanese director Yui Kiyohara’s second feature combines delicate human drama, mesmerising imagery and a reflection on personal and social history.
In the Blind Spot
A bold and chilling political thriller of shifting perspectives in which the weight of state-sanctioned terror begins to crush a security agent in eastern Turkey, where trauma and paranoia rip apart the social fabric.
#Manhole
Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s silly single location thriller is too straight-faced to be any fun.
Samsara
Lois Patiño’s latest contains a fascinating cinematic experience though the work as a whole will likely receive a more mixed reception.
The Shadowless Tower
Director Zhang Lu’s gentle, impressionistic story set in historic old Beijing is a rambling account of complicated family ties and individual loneliness.
CineVerdict: Tótem
La mexicana Lila Avilés dirige con sensibilidad y de forma impecable Tótem, su segunda película, en competencia en Berlín.
Totem
Mexican director Lila Avilés shows sensibility and a strong hand in ‘Totem’, her second feature.
The Burdened
A hard-pressed couple in Yemen’s port city of Aden search for a doctor to perform an abortion in Amr Gamal’s excellent, understated yet hard-hitting portrait of a family and their city in desperation.
Sisi & I
Frauke Finsterwalder delivers yet another take on the life of Empress Sisi, but can’t escape the long shadow of the much more spirited ‘Corsage’.
Orlando: My Political Biography
Debuting director Paul B. Preciado’s extravagant manifesto pushes the boundaries of feminine-masculine genres as well as cinematographic ones.
Between Revolutions
Vlad Petri’s visually captivating yet structurally slippery found-footage film reflects on the suppression faced by young, idealistic Romanian and Iranian women under self-avowed “revolutionary” regimes.
Ingeborg Bachmann: Journey into the Desert
Margarethe von Trotta’s deeply perceptive study of Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann, played by a dazzling Vicky Krieps, portrays the great writer’s struggle to combine freedom and commitment.
Reality
Sydney Sweeney shines in Tina Satter’s captivating, word-for-word account of Reality Winner’s FBI interrogation
Past Lives
A remarkably delicate, moving romance destined to be a major indie hit, boasting superb dialogue, terrific performances and an insightful understanding of how the what-ifs of life so often dangle around the perimeters of our lives.
Silver Haze
Dutch director Sacha Polak and British actress Vicky Knight reunite for an even looser-limbed slice-of-life story after their ‘Dirty God,’ which opened Rotterdam in 2019.
Berlin 2023: The Verdict
Despite dark times on the world stage, audiences poured back to Berlin’s first post-COVID festival.
73rd Berlinale Awards
Kristen Stewart’s jury awarded the Golden Bear to the French documentary ‘On the Adamant’, about a floating psychiatric hospital on the Seine.
On the Adamant
French documentarian Nicolas Philibert’s latest feature, competing in Berlin, gives voice to the patients in a psychiatric day care centre floating on the Seine.
The Walls of Bergamo
An outstanding, deeply moving documentary that finally addresses the pandemic not simply as a record of a tragedy but a collective trauma needing to be processed as a community.
Love to Love You, Donna Summer
From early days in Boston to the height of her stardom and sudden crash, this affectionate documentary made with major family involvement doesn’t probe deep enough or contextualize her career, but it reminds us that Donna Summer was a terrific performer whose talents were minimized by the moniker “Queen of Disco.”
The Fundraiser
Todd Field’s Tár supplement provides compelling extra notes to his masterfully composed film.
Art College 1994
Painter-filmmaker Liu Jian’s third animated feature (his second in Berlin competition) lacks the bite to capture the painful realities faced by Chinese art school students as their country opened up to the West and capitalist ideals.
And, Towards Happy Alleys
Indian director Sreemoyee Singh’s moving documentary transcends its overly relaxed editing and sometimes dispersive focus.
Suzume
The latest YA fantasy adventure from Japanese anime master Makoto Shinkai is a beautifully written and animated work of the imagination that incorporates elements of ‘Your Name’ and ‘Weathering with You’ and often sails beyond them.
Passages
Passages is a steamy, sensitive, and surprisingly funny look at the complications of modern love.
Awards Corner
Berlin
- Golden Bear for Best Film
Alcarras (Spain, Italy)
Director: Carla Simon - Silver Bear for Grand Jury Prize
The Novelist's Film (South Korea)
Director: Hong Sang-soo - Silver Bear for Jury Prize
Robe of Gems (Mexico)
Director: Natalia Lopez Gallardo - Silver Bear for Best Director
Both Sides of the Blade (France)
Director: Claire Denis - Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance
Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush (Germany, France)
Meltem Kaptan - Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance
Nana | Before, Now & Then (Indonesia)
Laura Basuki - Silver Bear for Best Screenplay
Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush (Germany, France)
Laila Stieler - Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution
Everything Will Be OK (Cambodia, France)
Director: Rithy Panh