Taking a stand in Berlin

The Berlin Film Festival is under way; last year’s edition was marked by tension over the conflict in Gaza, with the festival attempting to sideline any possible protests against Israel to a specially created trailer where those with the conflict on their minds could talk it through in private. Several filmmakers took to the red carpets and podiums to protest, despite the German government’s crackdown on pro-Palestine statements.

It also saw the German government decrying pro-Palestine protests and statements as, according to the country’s culture minister Claudia Roth, “shockingly one-sided and characterised by deep hatred of Israel”.

The cultural climate in Germany on the issue of Israel has concerned the world’s artistic community, many of whom have had second thoughts about participating in the country’s cultural events, including the film festival and the Documenta international art exhibition. Recently artist Nan Goldin used the opening of an exhibition of her work in Berlin to speak out against the German government’s censorship of pro-Palestinian protest and the cancelling of artists who the state has deemed too dangerously anti-Israel in recent years.

This year, while there were initial concerns about the possibility of fiery protests at the Berlin Film Festival, organisers assured the public that the festival would promote a spirit of free speech and debate within the confines of the government’s definition of what is acceptable. The first public figure to take up that challenge was actor Tilda Swinton, who called out “the astonishing savagery of spite, state-perpetrated and internationally enabled mass murder ... unacceptable to human society”, when she accepted a lifetime achievement Golden Bear Award from the festival last week.

Swinton went on to declare that “the inhumane is being perpetrated on our watch. I’m here to name it without hesitation or doubt in my mind, and to lend my unwavering solidarity to all those who recognise the unacceptable complacency of our greed-addicted governments who make nice with planet wreckers and war criminals, wherever they come from.

Though the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign group had made a call to boycott this year’s festival, Swinton, who has “a great deal of respect for BDS”, said that she had decided that it was more useful for her to go to Berlin and accept her award as she would have “a platform which I decided in a personal moment was potentially more useful to all our causes than me not turning up”.

This week director Todd Haynes, who is also president of the Berlin jury, used his platform to warn Hollywood against the consequences of bowing to pressure from President Donald Trump and his Republican cronies. Haynes, who began his career in the 1980s, when the Aids crisis was devastating the gay community in the US, first came to Berlin in 1991, when his debut feature Poison won the Teddy Award for best LGBTQ film. He believes that his background in activism has enabled him to be clear-headed about what he and other creatives need to do in this “whiplash moment” to ensure that they are able to speak out against the alarming cultural conservatism espoused by the US regime. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter this week, Haynes said that today’s America “is profound and terrifying, there’s no question. And what happens in film is in some ways the least of my worries. It’s important; it’s huge. It’s what I do. And it’s through this medium that we’ve survived even worse historical crises in the past. But I have such concerns about how our democratic system is going to survive.”

Haynes described Hollywood’s response to fears of recrimination by the US government as “almost advanced self-censorship, or yielding in advance”, citing “the various DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] programmes that have just fallen like dominoes”. What Haynes hopes Hollywood will realise is that this kind of early attempt to self-censor so as to avoid official censure is not the way to go, because “what we’ve learnt historically is that once you start to yield, they don’t reward you for submission. These kinds of people are insatiable. We have to be really careful about not yielding.”

While Haynes is not under any illusion that filmmakers can necessarily change the world, he does believe that “the particular situation we’re in now is so violent and so extreme that one can only hope that it also is met with a kind of necessity on the part of filmmaking. The need for filmmakers to speak out feels more urgent than ever. What they have to say matters, and there are people who need to hear it, and a community can be reformed around what’s happening now through film. That’s the best-case scenario. It will still be balanced by, at times supported by, and at times forced to struggle under, the commercial forces of Hollywood.”

Haynes and his Berlin jury aim to show those in the film industry who want to say something how to go about it. At the opening press conference last week, the director told the press, “What’s happening in the world right now has put an extra urgency to [the jury’s work]. That’s something this festival and this city, which has withstood more challenges and unbelievable history that it has recuperated from time and again, that puts the site really in the crosshairs of the moment that we’re in.”

So far no front-runner for the festival’s prestigious Golden Bear Award has emerged and it remains to be seen whether the jury’s final decision will celebrate the best possible film on offer or the most politically resonant artistic statement for this undoubtedly uncertain moment.