Berlin International Film Festival Announces Official 2020 Lineup
Films like First Cow and Siberia will be in competition for The Golden Bear
Photo by Thomas Niedermueller/Getty
The 70th Berlinale is set to open with the premiere of My Salinger Year, a film from Philippe Falardeau about an assistant (Margaret Qualley) to a literary agent (Sigourney Weaver) whose job requires her to answer fan mail sent to J.D. Salinger.
In a statement, the festival’s Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian said, “Philippe Falardeau depicts the small NYC literary world of the 1990s with humour and a sweet note, but he never forgets the 21st century we are living in or the unifying role that art plays in all of our lives.”
The Official Competition includes 18 films from 18 countries, with a total of 16 world premieres, with titles such as Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow, Natalia Meta’s El prófugo (The Intruder), Abel Ferrara’s Siberia, Hong Sangsoo’s Domangchin yeoja (The Woman Who Ran), and Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo’s Favolacce (Bad Tales.
Chatrian commented, “The Competition films tell intimate and earth-shattering, individual and collective stories that have an enduring effect and gain their impact from their interplay with the audience,” adding, “the films we have selected tend to look at the present without illusion—not to cause fear, but because they want to open our eyes.”
The festival will also give a tribute, called the Berlinale Camera, to filmmaker and artist Ulrike Ottinger (Chamisso’s Shadow, Under Snow, Joan of Arc of Mongolia), who will be premiering her documentary Paris Calligrammes at Berlin.
Chatrian and Executive Director Mariette Rissenbeek say of the tribute, “Ulrike Ottinger is the ideal recipient of an award that bears the word ‘camera.’ As a painter, a photographer, an all-round artist, she has always regarded cinema as a form of art which is created and crafted by meeting other people, objects, books, stories, places, sets in which reality makes itself felt.”
See the complete list of titles below. The Berlin International Film Festival begins on Feb. 20.
Berlin Alexanderplatz
Germany / Netherlands
by Burhan Qurbani
with Welket Bungué, Jella Haase, Albrecht Schuch, Joachim Król, Annabelle Mandeng, Nils Verkooijen, Richard Fouofié Djimeli
World premiere
DAU. Natasha
Germany / Ukraine / United Kingdom / Russian Federation
by Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Jekaterina Oertel
with Natalia Berezhnaya, Olga Shkabarnya, Vladimir Azhippo, Alexei Blinov, Luc Bigé
World premiere
Domangchin yeoja (The Woman Who Ran)
Republic of Korea
by Hong Sangsoo
with Kim Minhee, Seo Younghwa, Song Seonmi, Kim Saebyuk, Lee Eunmi, Kwon Haehyo, Shin Seokho, Ha Seongguk
World premiere
Effacer l’historique (Delete History)
France / Belgium
by Benoît Delépine, Gustave Kervern
with Blanche Gardin, Denis Podalydès, Corinne Masiero
World premiere