Ole Schulz

After one exhausting week with hundreds of films at Berlinale, nerves are on edge.

Some have given up before – like columnist Harald Martenstein from „Tagesspiegel”: „There are strong people, and there are weak people. At Berlinale, you realize in the last third to which group you are belonging.” In his case it´s quite clear: Martenstein himself „passed out and then slept for 14 hours”.

Others were hanging on – and are now grumbling, when everything is over. These complaints are maybe typical for us Germans (instead of saying don´t worry be happy, we are criticizing each other to death). But are there really good reasons to do so? Let´s see.

On the one hand Berlinale has been a „massive public hit” again („Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”/FAZ), and about three hundred thousand tickets were sold. Berlinale is still the world's largest public film festival.

On the other hand it´s not the first time that the quality of the competition is questioned – „Berlinale is suffering a serious crisis in competition”, „Tagesspiegel” writes. And FAZ asks „success or disaster?” before reasoning it has been „at most a third-rate competition” – almost no world premieres, out of nineteen films none with „international charisma”, in race with Cannes and Venice Berlinale has made themself „comfortably in third place”. At least the winner of the golden bear, the Romanian „Child's Pose” from Calin Peter Netzer, gets some credits – „an expected and deserved winner”, as „Spiegel online” notes.

And now? Should Berlinale focus even more on small independent movies from Eastern Europe and Asia (FAZ) or cancel the competition completely („Tagesspiegel”) – or couldn´t the festival exist „entirely without glamor on the red carpet” („Spiegel online”)?

If you ask me: Forget about the (quality of the) competition. In the baroque style organized Berlinale with their confusing number of sections (Shorts, Forum, Panorama, Generation, Perspektive Deutsches Kino, Retrospective, Culinary Cinema and so on) you could see enough fresh and surprising films.

You only have to stand it.   

Ole Schulz