Denis Ménochet and Isabelle Adjani in Peter von Kant by François Ozon

The 72th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival will be inaugurated by Peter von Kant by writer/director François Ozon. The film which stars Denis Ménochet, Isabelle Adjani and Hanna Schygulla is part of the international Competition and will celebrate its world premiere on February 10, 2022, at the Berlinale Palast.

Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian: “We are beyond thrilled to welcome back François Ozon to the festival and are happy to launch our next edition with his new film. For this year’s opening, we were looking for a film that could bring lightness and verve into our somber daily lives. Peter von Kant is a theatrical tour de force around the concept of lockdown. In the hands of Ozon, the kammerspiel becomes the perfect container for love and jealousy, seduction and humour—indeed, everything that makes life and art so entangled.”

Peter von Kant is a free interpretation of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s masterpiece Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, 1972). Turning the character of Petra von Kant into a man and a filmmaker, superbly played by Denis Ménochet, François Ozon pays tribute not only to the original film but to Fassbinder himself, and, in doing so, also delivers with his usual irony a very personal, playful self-portrait.

Director, writer and producer François Ozon is back in the Berlinale Competition for the sixth time – 20 years after his cast as an ensemble won a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution with 8 Femmes, which will also be screened this year as part of the Homage to Isabelle Huppert. In 2019 Ozon was awarded with the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize for Grâce à Dieu (By the Grace of God).

“It is such a pleasure and honour to return to Berlin, where I only have great memories, 22 years after the premiere of Water Drops on Burning Rocks, adapted from Rainer Werner Fassbinder,” comments François Ozon. “The Berlin International Film Festival is the ideal place to discover Peter von Kant, which celebrates my attachment as a French director to German culture. Thank you for the selection.”

Peter von Kant is produced by FOZ (France). Playtime handles international sales.