Berlin 2024

German director Katharina Pethke’s first full-length documentary feature Reproduction (sold by Pluto Film and which premiered in Berlinale Forum) touches on art, architecture and family history. It also reflects her own dilemmas about art, work and family. “The breaking point for feminism nowadays is motherhood, I would say. It is still impossible to be both [mother and artist],” Pethke tells Business Doc Europe.

Director David Hinton talks to Business Doc Europe about the great filmmaking duo responsible for The Red Shoes, A Matter Of Life And Death and The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp, and their influence on Martin Scorsese who both collaborated on and narrated Hinton’s new film Made In England, which screened this week as a Berlinale Special.

Blending new concert footage with archival material and interviews, Philipp Fussenegger and Judy Landkammer’s watchable and illuminating documentary tells the transformative journey of Canadian Merrill Nisker from children’s music teacher at the YMCA to dynamic punk performer named Peaches after her relocation to Germany. Filmed during the “Teaches of Peaches Anniversary Tour” in 2022, the film provides an intimate look at the inner workings of the tour and what drives the performer.

When parents die, their descendants are confronted with drawers, shelves and boxes full of things which have been collected and organised over a lifetime. In the case of director Costanza Quatriglio, her father was well-known Italian journalist Giuseppe Quatriglio, and his archives were of interest not only to her but also to the Central Library of the Sicilian Region.

In a film that adds new perspective to the war in Ukraine, four generations of women in one war-torn family, including director Svitlana Lishchynska, wrestle with their conflicting identities and mentalities formed in the Soviet Union, the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine, the capital Kyiv and as refugees in the UK. Where, among all these places, is home?

Exiled Iranian director Farahnaz Sharifi talks to Business Doc Europe about her film which tells a parallel history of Iran since the 1979 revolution, culled from personal archives. “At a time when power structures strive to narrate history in ways that hide important and popular segments, it becomes all the more crucial to share personal details and micro-narratives,” says Farahnaz. Sold by CAT&Docs, My Stolen Planet world premieres February 21.

Victor Kossakovsky’s new documentary Architecton, about the architectural use of stone and concrete (and a companion piece to Aquarela, his 2018 doc about water), is beautifully solemn and visually awe-inspiring, even sublime. But it suffers from a muddled narrative. The film is one of two documentaries selected for Berlinale Competition in 2024.

Master docmaker Victor Kossakovsky spoke to Business Doc Europe before the Feb 19 world premiere of his Berlinale Competition pick Architecton, a lyrical, hypnotising and often disturbing documentary on architecture that includes everything from massive landslides to shots of bombed out Ukrainian buildings, from ancient monuments to scenes of Italian architect Michele De Lucchi creating a stone circle in his garden.

This year, the European Film Awards ceremony will be held for the first time in Switzerland. The 37th edition of Europe’s leading awards event will be presented Saturday, 7 December 2024 at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre (KKL Luzern). A varied support programme of screenings, debates and events will be held throughout the year in Switzerland which will take visitors on “a journey of discovery through Swiss and European filmmaking.”

The impulse to make Favoriten came from director Ruth Beckermann's anger about the school system in Austria and Germany. She doesn’t like the way kids are “divided” at the age of 10. Nor is she happy about the lack of support given to children who haven’t grown up speaking German. “The school system is one of the most difficult to change because there is so much of a class struggle involved…the elites don’t want these kids to move up in society,” Beckermann tells BDE.