Interview

Mees Peijnenburg is presenting his new feature A Family at this year’s Berlinale. The seasoned Generation director has come back to Berlin a fourth time to tell the Story of two siblings that bear witness to an emotional divorce by their parents. The film is split in three chapters, displaying the same events from the view of the 14 year old brother and the 17 year old sister as well as a reckoning about their shared trauma. Generation Reports (FGR): We’ve read that you’ve always wanted to tell a story about a family breaking apart. We’ve had a true intimate connection to you film. How do you connect with this story? Mees Peijnenburg: A Family started from a very personal point of view; my parents separated when I was young, and I always wanted to explore what that fracturing does to...

I am meeting the Chilean filmmaker Diego „Mapache“ Fuentes in the lobby of the Hyatt hotel. Mapache, meaning raccoon in Spanish, is the nickname he got himself as a young punk in one of Chile's most elite universities. He is welcoming and eager to talk about his graduation film, Matapanki, which brought him to this year's Berlinale. Matapanki tells the story of a young punk that gets superpowers whenever he is drunk and starts to fight political injustice. To fully appreciate Matapanki, it helps to understand the backdrop of Chile's contemporary history. During the Cold War, the country was ruled by a brutal military dictatorship, which was followed by a gradual process of democratization beginning in 1989. For decades, Chilean society—and its cinema—have been shaped by the lingering sc...

One of the most touching films of this year's Berlinale screened in the Generation K+ Section was the Chinese film Zhi Wu Xue Jia - The Botanist by Jing Yi. A film that takes us to a small village at the Chinese border close to Kasachstan. For its touching portrayal of the region, its enrichment to the discourse on the human-nature relation and its stunning pictures The Botanist receives this year's Grad Prix for Best Feature Film in the Generation K+ section. I was deeply touched by this film and especially by the wonderful music, that transported the beauty and melancholy of the pictures. Therefore I asked composer Peyman Yazdanian for an interview. Peyman is an Iranian pianist and music composer. He is internationally known for his compositions for both national and foreign feature film...

It is tuesday afternoon during the Berlinale. The CinemaxX cinema is full of filmmakers, Journalists and Berlinale visitors. We manage to find a spot to record our own Interview, and are very excited when we finally get to meet and talk with Lucia Murat, the Director of 'Hora do Recreio'. In this interview, Lucia Murat talks about her personal background, about what moved her to make this movie, about the experience while working with the teenagers and about the systemic origins of violence. You can listen to it below, scroll further down to read along, or watch a shortened version of the Interview on our Instagram (or at the very bottom of the article). Interview by Liv Heyden and Anouk Segebart, video and photos by Lukas Mascher. https://open.spotify.com/episode/3OZBeNjWrekaz0vtXK...

With Sunshine (review) the experienced Filipina film maker Antoinette Jadaone presents a film that addresses the stigma surrounding abortion in her deeply Christian country. I had the opportunity to meet her and the male lead Elijah Canlas at Berlinale Palast to ask them a few questions. We talked about the state of abortions in the Philippines, and what it means to create a film covering such a difficult topic. Free Generation Reporters (fGR): What sparked your idea for the film?  Antoinette Jadaone: I don't know if you have heard of the film Jojo Rabbit by Taika Waititi. It is a little bit of a weird connection, but in the film, the lead character had an imaginary friend who is Hitler. While watching it, I wasn't able to focus on the film anymore. I had this light bulb idea of...

An interview with Rima Das. Generation has the tendency to pull film makers back to Berlin again and again over the years. Sometimes it is for a second film, often they come back as part of the International Jury. For Rima Das it is already her third visit at Berlinale. After presenting her feature film Bulbul Can Sing (review) in the 2019 Generation program and returning as part of the International Jury in 2020, she is now showing her most recent feature film Village Rockstars 2 (review) in the 14Plus competition. The day after the European premier, Liv and I sit down with her and leading actress Bhanita Das at Berlinale Palast for an extended chat.  In 2019 Liv and Carlotta already had the pleasure to interview her about Bulbul Can Sing (read here) and it’s a heartfelt reunion on ...

After an incredible premiere of Young Hearts by Anthony Schatteman I can’t help but want to speak to Anthony about his debut feature film. We meet at Berlinale Palast for an interview about Young Hearts and his experience at Berlinale so far. fGR: You’ve lived in Berlin before, but this is your first time at Berlinale presenting your own film. Do you have a favourite interaction so far or did you experience something particularly surprising? Anthony Schatteman: Today we showed the film to a very young audience for the first time. At the premiere on Saturday we had a few kids, but today it was a room full of schools. That scared me a bit, but the response was really good. At first I thought that maybe the children just like to clap, but during the Q&A so many of them came to the m...