Berlinale Round-Up 2017
On Body and Soul, Ildikó Enyedi (2017)
"Do you want to instigate a revolution without laughter?"
- Beuys
Refugee narratives, auteur landmarks from female directors and queer cinema dominated this year's Berlin International Film Festival, whose program is quickly becoming the most vast and topical selection of contemporary world cinema. Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki and Belgian cinematographer-turned-filmmaker Philippe Van Leeuw offered diverse if equally compelling lenses into the Syrian refugee crisis, while Agnieszka Holland and Ildikó Enyedi delivered humorous and borderline-bizarre portraits of modern women, the latter winning the Golden Bear. Gay and trans-themed works were in robust display, hailing from Japan to South Africa to Chile, but perhaps the most clever message arrived in the form of Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name—sometimes a gay film doesn't have to be a gay film at all.
Below are Filmatique's Top Films of the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival:
Becoming Who I Was, Chang-Yong Moon & Jin Jeon
Call Me By Your Name, Luca Guadagnino
Casting JonBenet, Kitty Green
Chavela, Catherine Gund & Daresha Kyi
Close-Knit, Naoko Ogigami
El mar la mar, Joshua Bonnetta & J.P. Sniadecki
Félicité, Alain Gomis
Hostages, Rezo Gigineishvili
House in the Fields, Tala Hadid
Inflame, Ceylan Özgün Özçelik
Insyriated, Philippe Van Leeuw
Investigating Paradise, Merzak Allouche
Mr. Long, Sabu
On Body and Soul, Ildikó Enyedi
On the Beach at Night Alone, Hong Sangsoo
One Thousand Ropes, Tusi Tamasese
The Other Side of Hope, Aki Kaurismäki
Requiem for Mrs. J, Bojan Vuletic
Return to Montauk, Volker Schlöndorff
Río Verde. El tiempo de los Yakarunas, Alvaro & Diego Sarmiento
Spoor, Agnieszka Holland
Una mujer fantástica, Sebastián Lelio
Vazante, Daniela Thomas
When the Day Had No Name, Teona Strugar Mitevska
The Wound, John Trengove
Vazante, Daniela Thomas (2017)