Sawt Falasteen - Berlin Film Festival to open with a rallying cry 'to defend artistic freedom'

Against the backdrop of polarisation and repression, "it's more critical than ever that we defend our artistic freedom", festival director Tricia Tuttle told AFP.

German Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer said the 76th edition of the festival would be a testament to the fact that "screenplays, cameras and screens are not mere artistic tools, but weapons in the fight for freedom and human dignity".

"We must not allow the despots in Tehran or Caracas to win," he said in a statement.

Berlin is the first major international festival in the world's film calendar and has a reputation for topical and progressive programming.

This year's edition takes place against the backdrop of international tensions, the bloody crackdown on protests in Iran and global threats to human rights.

The opening film, "No Good Men" by Iran-born Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat, tells the story of Naru, a reporter at a Kabul TV station separated from her husband on account of his infidelities who questions her beliefs about men during a fateful assignment.

The film is set in the run up to the Taliban's seizure of power in 2021, which led Sadat herself to leave the country. She now lives in Hamburg.

"It's about Afghan women's experience, which you wouldn't see if it wasn't for Shahrbanoo's work," Tuttle said.

- 'Biting satire' -

The festival's opening ceremony, starting at 7:00 pm (1800 GMT), will honour Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, who won the Best Actress Oscar in 2023 for "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once".

More than 200 films will be shown over the 10 days of the festival, of which 22 will be in competition for the Golden Bear, which last year was scooped by Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud's film "Dreams".

As was the case last year, a majority of the films being shown this year were made by women directors, as were nine of the 22 films in official competition.

In comparison with Cannes or Venice, Berlin attracts fewer big productions with A-list-heavy casts.

But that is not to say there are no big names on the programme.

"The Weight" features Russell Crowe and Ethan Hawke in a tale of a man forced to smuggle gold through the lethal wilderness of Depression-era rural Oregon.

Southern Germany stands in for the US Northwest in the film, one of an increasing number of American productions choosing to shoot abroad to save on costs.

In the official competition section, one of the most eagerly awaited films is "Rosebush Pruning" from Berlinale favourite Karim Ainouz, billed as "a biting satire about the absurdity of the traditional patriarchal family".

The cast boasts Elle Fanning, Callum Turner, Jamie Bell and Pamela Anderson, who are sure to be some of Saturday's red-carpet highlights.

German actress Sandra Hueller, who attracted international acclaim for her roles in "Anatomy of a Fall" and "The Zone of Interest", stars in "Rose", in which she plays a woman passing herself off as a male soldier returning to a German village in the early 17th century.

Also in the competition section, Amy Adams stars as a woman leaving rehab and confronting buried trauma in Kornel Mundruczo's "At The Sea", while in Beth de Araujo's "Josephine", Channing Tatum plays the father of a child traumatised by witnessing a violent crime.

N.Awad--SF-PST