The Berlin Film Festival is only a few months away, which means it’s that time of the year again when I start speculating about the lineup. The festival had confirmed a few months back that it would return to being in-person in 2022, we were expecting bigger names to show up this coming edition, but then Omicron showed up.
Whether the Berlinale actually sticks with its February dates is something that’s still up in the air, but its organizers are said to be very adamant at making the show go on as planned. The fest doesn’t greet as many international tourists as, say, Cannes or Toronto and can more flexibly adhere to whatever the COVID rules on moviegoing might be come February.
As for the actual lineup, I don’t have as many spies within the Berlinale as I do at Cannes or Venice, so it is a much more daunting task for me to predict what will play this festival. With that being said, I have assembled as much intel as I could find and I do believe I’m on the right path with the below predictions.
I already reported in July that Claire Denis’ “Fire” was locked for competition, but what else will appear?
Robert Eggers’ Viking epic “The Northman” could make the trek to Berlin. The film has been test-screened multiple times this year, with reshoots having also been conducted for VFX purposes.
Venice said no to Alain Guiraudie’s “Viens Je T'emmène,” but, I was told, the Berlinale is said to have accepted it in one of their sidebar sections .
Continuing on with the French filmmakers; Robert Guédiguian’s “Mali Twist” and Quentin Dupieux “Incredible, But True” were both ready to premiere this year but have been conspicuously absent from the Euro film festival circuit. A Berlinale showing is expected for one or both of these titles.
One could also expect new films from yearly participants Hong Sang-soo, and Lav Diaz to appear in competition. I’ve also been hearing about “Our Apprenriceship,” a new film from Ryusuke Hamaguchi, but the Japanese filmmaker might want to wait it out until Cannes.
German titles? The marquee one that comes to mind are Angela Schanalec’s “Music,” — the writer-director is coming off winning the Silver Bear in 2019 for her film “I Was at Home, But.” Helena Wittmann’s “Human Flowers of Flesh” is also a likely possibility. Then there’s Michael Grandage’s “My Policeman” and 2017 festival darling Carla Simon returning with ”Alcarras,” her follow up to her breakout hit “Summer 1993.”
Finally, the mystery keeps persisting when it comes to the status of Christian Petzold’s “The Red Sky.” Has it been shot yet? The project was announced almost a year ago by the director himself at a New York Film Festival Q&A. Six of Petzold’s last eight movies have world premiered at the Berlinale. I’m hearing it’s done.
Based on everything I have heard, these titles could be very much in the mix for a competition slot:
“Fire” dir. Claire Denis
“Peter von Kant” dir. Francois Ozon
“Les passagers de la nuit” dir. Mikhaël Hers
“Nobody’s Hero” dir. Alain Guiraudie
“Music” dir. Angela Schanalec
“The Red Sky” dir. Christian Petzold
“Untitled” dir. Hong Sang-soo
“Human Flowers of Flesh” dir. Helena Wittmann
“My Policeman” dir. Michael Grandage
“Alcarras” dir. Carla Simon
“Plus Que Jamais” dir. Emily Atef
“Splendid Isolation” dir. Urszula Antoniak
“Silent Twins” dir. Agnieszka Smoczynska
“Il Boemo” dir. Petr Václav
“Simone, le voyage du siècle” dir. Olivier Dahan
“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” dir. Anthony Fabian
“Le petite bande” dir. Pierre Salvadori
“A propos de Joan” dir. Laurent Lariviere
“Caravaggio's Shadow” dir. Michele Placido
That’s 19 potential films for Berlin competition.
Last year's Berlin Film Festival ended up being one of the better editions with films such as “Bad Luck Banging”, “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy”, “I'm Your Man”, “Petite Maman”, “Introduction,” “The Girl and the Spider,” and “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky” premiering. They all had decent post-Berlin lives and healthy fall festival runs.
The Berlinale is still scheduled to run on February 10-20, 2022.
Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's "You Can See Everything" has been in theaters for, what, three days? And it's already the highest-rated feature film of all time on Letterboxd.