Berlin Film Festival Receives Global Support from Film Community Despite Omicron Threat
variety.comNick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe leadup to the 2022 Berlin Film Festival has been a veritable rollercoaster ride for co-directors Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian due to the global spread of the Omicron variant.But while other top fests such as Sundance and Rotterdam went online again, Berlin has stayed the course due to the two chiefs’ determination to not go virtual and also to keep their February slot, albeit in its current reduced Feb.
10-16 form. The festival opens with Francois Ozon’s “Peter von Kant” (pictured above).In order to hold the Berlinale as an in-person event, in early January they came up with a what they call a “new concept,” moving the European Film Market (EFM) online and cutting the in-person film festival down four days for attendees who will be arriving from outside Germany, with repeat screenings to follow, strictly for locals. “We shortened what you can call the ‘activity’ part of the festival in order to make this meeting point — which, ultimately, is what a festival is — as brief as possible,” says Rissenbeek, the Berlinale’s executive director.
That was done to ensure “that the mingling and meeting that goes on, with a lot of people traveling here, is as brief as possible.”“After talking with authorities, we know that screening rooms per se are not that dangerous,” says Chatrian, the fest’s artistic director. “But all the other activities that take place at a festival — and even more so in a market — of course do pose a risk of infection.
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