The 73rd Berlinale – A Year of Disconnection and Disappointment
by Rose Finlay
Two thousand twenty-three marked my tenth year attending the Berlinale and while much has remained the same, there have also been some major changes over the years. In some ways, the 73rd Berlinale was a return to the norm; after two years of COVID-19, the festival was finally once again in person and without any pandemic related restrictions. While the festival felt more like normal, some quintessential aspects are gone and never to return.
Prior to the pandemic, all accredited journalists had to line up each morning at the press area Hyatt Potsdamer Platz in order to book and receive physical tickets to press screenings. Over the years, it was nice to see friendly, familiar faces at the ticket counter and to have the time to grab a coffee, chat with other journalists, and pick up the daily Screen and Hollywood Reporter festival magazines. Alas, this daily ritual is now a thing of the past. Gone is the ticket counter and instead there is the digital ticketing platform, which while efficient, just seems to lack the human element that makes film festivals so enjoyable.
This lack of human connection continued throughout the duration of this year’s festival. The largest cinema of Potsdamer Platz, CineStar, closed in 2020 and the space at the Sony Center remains empty to this day. Also, this year the CinemaxX was under construction, leading to a limited amount of space for the festival to use at Potsdamer Platz outside of the single-screen venue of Berlinale Palast. The result was a decentralized experience, as many of the press screenings were instead held at venues around the city such as Cubix Alexanderplatz and the Verti Music Hall in Friedrichshain. While the festival touted the new introduction of the venue at the Verti Music Hall as a great boon, its location is so out of the way that it is an extreme hassle to try to attend screenings there. Constantly having to bounce between Potsdamer Platz, Alex, Friedrichshain, and Tiergarten/Zoo for screenings is exhausting and unpractical. There is little free time to simply sit and chat with other attendees of the festival when one always has to run across town. Add to this the fact that the Berlinale doesn’t seem interested in providing industry professionals with any discounted public transport passes or shuttles and it starts to feel a bit ridiculous.
Another big change in 2023 is that all press are required to have a ticket to attend all screenings, including press screenings. This was a major detriment, as part of the fun of being accredited was always that one could pop into a screening of a film and if it turned out to be unbearable it was possible to leave and jump into another film. No longer are we to have this flexibility, which honestly not only takes a bit of the fun and adventure out of the festival, but also makes it far more boring. Unfortunately, this can only have an impact on the more experimental films which rarely have a large press audience to begin with. Even worse, is that if someone accredited doesn’t use their booked tickets and decides at the last minute to skip a film or two, they can lose their accreditation entirely! It isn’t clear what the impetus for these new rules are, but the result was that I was far less likely to take a chance on an experimental film and instead stuck with the “sure bets”. The change also meant that it was harder to meet up with other industry colleagues because, oops, they booked the alternate screening room for the film we were planning to watch together and there is little to no way to change it last minute.
It seems as though every year I say to myself, there is no way it can get worse, and yet somehow, I am always proven wrong. Over the past decade of attending the Berlinale there have been many changes and for some reason it always seems to be a lessening or a removal. No more Culinary Cinema, no more NATIVe - Indigenous Cinema, no more food trucks, no more centralized festival, no more flexibility, no more panorama bar, no more typing room, no more physical press materials, no more festival app, no more free festival bags (honestly, this one is probably my biggest gripe for 2023)! How much more can be taken away before it stops being enjoyable or worth it to attend? Why is it that it seems that every year something else goes away, but nothing new or interesting seems to be brought in to replace it? Is it a funding issue or just mismanagement? The only thing I know is that while I want to be loyal to the biggest and most prestigious festival in Germany, it is becoming harder each year to stay positive about the way things are going. Yet still I find myself hoping, as I do every year, that maybe next year things will be different and there will be some positive changes. But I think I’m not going to get my hopes up.
