Berlin Film Festival Jury President Todd Haynes not too long ago opened the annual celebration Thursday, February 13 with an ominous warning about the current Trump administration.
“We’re in a state of particular crisis right now in the United States, but also globally,” he stated (as per Variety).
Considering the barrage of govt actions being handed down by Trump, Haynes believes the priority over how this “will affect filming is a real question hanging over all American filmmakers.”
“Always with filmmaking in particular, the financing question is complicated,” Haynes stated. “So it’s also about the kind of financiers who are willing to take risks and willing to support strong voices. And I think that exists, but again, it takes examples and positive outcomes to fortify those kinds of risks that people may want to take.”
He added later, “Every film that is not part of a franchise, piece of content, or a Marvel film, or a major studio film, people are figuring out different forms of financing and different ways of speaking out.”
However, Haynes isn’t simply frightened over the “world of filmmaking,” however the mere capability to “maintain your own integrity and point of view and speak out” underneath a regime that retaliates in opposition to you for doing so.
“How we proceed toward coalescing different forms of resistance are still in the works and are still being figured out among Democrats,” stated Haynes. “I have no doubt that there will be many people who did in fact vote for this president who will be quickly disillusioned by promises he made about economic stability in the U.S.”
The jury president additionally identified that it’s throughout these occasions when cinema can be utilized as a software of resistance. He’s had private expertise with this having began his profession amidst the AIDS disaster of the Nineteen Eighties and 90s.
“As somebody in their 20s who was surrounded by this kind of public health catastrophe, watching every other person you know die of this incredibly aggressive illness, it produced that kind of political efficacy and a creative component where filmmakers responded to what was happening in all kinds of different ways,” Haynes stated. “But it produced what was termed, at the time, the new queer cinema, and I was very proud of being part of that mantle of filmmaker because the films were not just challenging the system in content, they were also challenging traditional forms of storytelling in style and form.”
The seventy fifth Berlinale runs from February 13 to February 23, with the European Film Market additionally being held there throughout this time, from February 13 to February 19. Haynes leads a jury comprised of Nabil Ayouch, Fan Bingbing, Maria Schrader, Bina Daigeler, Rodrigo Moreno, and Amy Nicholson.
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