Last year’s Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) ended in political disarray after the directors of the Israeli-Palestinian documentary No Other Land criticised the murderous Netanyahu government and its supporters in Germany.

As a result, the 75th anniversary of the festival was planned to take place this year without political scandal. At the beginning of the event, however, the actor Tilda Swinton, who was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear, gave an acceptance speech in which she condemned “state-perpetrated and internationally enabled genocide” and the current campaign for mass deportations of refugees against the background of the Israeli onslaught against Gaza. She called for solidarity and human rights for all, and the defence of the Berlinale as a “borderless and internationally oriented cinema and ‘culture of resistance.’” [The entire speech is available here.]

The Oscar-winning British performer has been associated with the Berlinale for many years, appearing in 26 films in the festival programme, including Caravaggio, which won the Silver Bear in 1986, The Garden (at the 1991 festival), The Beach (2000), Derek (2008), Julia (2008) and Last and First Men (2020). She won international recognition in 1992 for her portrayal of Orlando, in the film of the same title based on the novel by Virginia Woolf and directed by Sally Potter.

In her 13-minute address in Berlin, Swinton praised the international festival for not requiring participants to submit any form proving domicile or a visa, and addressed the young generation of filmmakers: 

Here is one of the best things that can happen to young people who are curious about the world and want to know how to live in it... It is so good that we are amazed by the world and surprised by each other’s admiration, instead of being speechless about our ruthless meanness and cruelty.

In her vivid, at times poetic remarks, Swinton described the cinema as a boundless haven of freedom and solidarity, qualities increasingly difficult to find in the world. She did not address the massacre in Gaza and the Israeli government’s far-right policies directly, but the enthusiastic applause for her speech made clear that everyone in the room knew what she meant: “The inhuman is perpetrated under our supervision. I am here to call it by name and to pledge my unwavering solidarity to all those who recognise it.”

“State-perpetrated and internationally enabled mass murder is actively terrorising more than one part of our world right now. Condemned by the very bodies that human beings set up to police what happens on this earth, that are unacceptable to the human community,” Swinton added, referring to the Trump administration’s recent campaign against the International Criminal Court and the attacks in Germany on Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who has just been disinvited from German universities in Munich and Berlin.

Referring to the overall policy of war, fascism and social devastation, she continued:

Inhumanity is being perpetrated under our watch. I am here to name it, without hesitation or doubt. And to give my unwavering solidarity to all those who recognise the unacceptable complacency of our rapacious governments, who curtsy to planetary destroyers and war criminals. No matter where they come from.

In response to Trump’s recent announcement that he wanted to turn the Gaza Strip into a “Middle Eastern Riviera” under American control, Swinton presented the counter-image of a cinematic “state,” as “a borderless realm... inherently inclusive, immune to efforts of occupation, colonisation, ownership or development of Riviera property.”

Finally, once more addressing the younger filmmakers in the audience, she encouraged them to defend human rights and an “internationalist cinema culture” in the current situation. She believes in a culture of resistance.

In the run-up to the festival, the new Berlinale management faced growing political and financial pressure from the German government, the Berlin Senate and Israel-friendly circles such as the German-Jewish WerteInitiative [ValuesInitiative].

Last year’s festival ended with a political controversy when the prizes for best documentary and the Panorama Audience Award were given to the Israeli-Palestinian film No Other Land, which documents the crimes of the Israeli army and government against the Palestinian population in the West Bank. After the film, the directing team and the Berlinale jury were denounced as “antisemitic” by Claudia Roth (Greens), the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, and the Berlin Christian Democratic Union (CDU)-Social Democratic Party (SPD) Senate. The Berlinale management team led by Carlo Chatrian subsequently resigned. 

Meanwhile, No Other Land has been internationally celebrated, receiving numerous prizes at renowned festivals, including in Copenhagen, Switzerland, Warsaw, South Korea, Australia, Montreal and Vancouver. At the same time, it was withheld from audiences in cinemas in the US until recently and, to some extent, also in Germany.

After Tricia Tuttle, a US citizen and a former director of the London Film Festival, took over the management of the Berlinale, she too soon came under pressure. Last autumn, the Berlin capital portal berlin.de repeated the false accusation of antisemitism against No Other Land, but was forced to retract after the Israeli director of the film team, Yuval Abraham, threatened to sue. Even the German ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, called the accusation of antisemitism “simply false” in a post on X.

Tuttle, the new head of the Berlinale, took a principled position on this issue at the time, declaring that she considered “neither the film nor the statements made by the co-directors, the Palestinian Basel Adra and the Israeli Yuval Abraham, during the Berlinale awards ceremony to be antisemitic.” Regarding the antisemitism resolution that was passed in the Bundestag last November and that is now being used to justify numerous censorship measures in the fields of culture and science, the Berlinale management stated on its website that it is “not a legally binding document” and “therefore has no influence on the running of the Berlinale” and that it is, in part, an infringement “on the fundamental rights of artistic freedom and freedom of expression.”

In response, the pro-government and pro-Israel organisation “Values Initiative” called for state funding of the festival to be stopped and the Berlin Senate announced that it would halve its subsidies. 

In an attempt to avert further damage to the Berlinale, Tuttle ensured that for the first time no speeches would be given by politicians at the opening of the festival this year—neither by Claudia Roth nor by the governing mayor of Berlin Kai Wegner (CDU). At the same time, she demonstratively supported a vigil at the entrance of the Berlinale Palast for the release of an Israeli hostage, the actor David Cunio. She made no comment on a rival demonstration outside the opening ceremony, which protested with posters against the genocide in Gaza and the complicity of the German government.

The ominous world situation, with the election of fascist Trump in the US, immediately followed by the collapse of the governing coalition in Germany and a new election, which coincides with the Berlinale, has dashed any hopes by the establishment of a festival free of conflict and politics.

After Swinton’s speech, angry attacks on the Berlinale erupted once again. The Jüdische Allgemeine demanded an apology from the Berlinale, supported by the Berliner Tagesspiegel.

The sharp turn to the right of the ruling elites worldwide, the return to nationalism, war, fascism and social destruction also directly threaten culture. Swinton’s courageous speech, who supported an open letter signed by over 2,000 prominent actors, directors and artists against the massacre in the Gaza war in October 2023, consciously opposed these developments.

The Berlinale, founded in 1950 and holding its first edition the following year, is the largest public film festival in the world. Last year, over 400,000 tickets were sold. Time and again, the festival has reflected the political conflicts of the day and this year is no different. However, the danger of state oppression and the destruction of artistic freedom has never been as threatening as it is now since the end of the Second World War and the Nazi dictatorship.

Some of the more than 230 films at this year’s Berlinale deal with this reactionary development, and the shock, confusion and growing opposition among the population are also reflected in some of the works, with varying degrees of success.

The opening film of the festival, The Light (Das Licht), by Tom Tykwer, director of Run Lola Run and the television series Berlin Babylon, is one example. It focuses on the breakdown of a middle-class family that previously considered itself progressive, but whose hopes in a democratic-liberal development of capitalism are now collapsing. The WSWS will review this film separately. 

A number of films deal with social decline and its impact on families and personal relationships. Others, such as the documentaries Marcin Wierzchowski’s The German People (Das Deutsche Volk) and Martina Priessner’s The Moelln Letters (Die Möllner Briefe) treat the hypocritical refugee policy in Germany or the racism and increasing right-wing extremism in the state, police and politics.

On the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and in commemoration of the Holocaust, the nine-hour film by Claude Lanzmann Shoah (1985) will be shown, as well as a new film by Guillaume Ribot on Lanzmann’s work, All I Had Was Nothingness (Je n’avais que le néant—“Shoah” par Lanzmann).

To be continued