Berlin Controversy; Lunar New Year Box Office In China, Korea & Vietnam

Before digging into the Lunar New Year box office, a few words on the political controversy at this year’s Berlinale. Much has already been written on this subject by just about every trade, national paper and social media account – so I’m just referring to an edition of Streamlined published before last year’s Venice and Toronto film festivals that deals with the same issues.

Of course the anger is understandable; the world is in pain, horrifying injustices are happening in multiple countries, and the structures we thought we had in place to tackle these injustices are collapsing at an alarming rate. But the media, and particularly social media, are these days driven by sound bites and clickbait, not by nuanced debate. While we believe we’re raising awareness for important issues, our rage is being commodified and used against us to feed the algorithm exactly what it wants. Whatever Berlinale jury president Wim Wenders did or didn’t say at that press conference – it was always going to be a win for the tech billionaires who own the social media platforms, not for the Palestinian people.

So it was a relief to hear the words of Golden Bear winner İlker Çatak as he accepted his award on Berlinale's closing night. He said he’d prepared a political speech but chose not to read it because “so many smart people have said so many smart things and I want to leave the stage to the wonderful people that I made this film with.”

He also said there’s a scene in his film that reminded him of what had been happening in Berlin this year: “Filmmakers against other filmmakers, artists against creatives. But we are not enemies. We are allies. The real threat is not among us. It’s the autocrats. It’s the right-wing parties. It’s the nihilists of our time who try to come to power and destroy our way of living.”