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BERLINALE 2020 EFM

The 2020 Berlinale Talents get “collectively creative”

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- The leading Berlinale initiative is to welcome 255 Talents from 86 countries in order to encourage collective collaboration and enable them to emerge more creative than before

The 2020 Berlinale Talents get “collectively creative”
The poster for this year's edition of Berlinale Talents

At its 18th edition, Berlinale Talents will aim to explore the boundaries of being collectively creative. The leading summit and networking platform is inviting 255 emerging film professionals – 125 women, 123 men and six that don’t specify their gender – to discover what they have in common and to confirm that “each individual is a highlight, and a collective of many is unstoppable”.

Unspooling during the 70th Berlin Film Festival, from 22-27 February 2020, Berlinale Talents will host professionals from 86 countries (see the full list of all selected participants here), who will bring their projects along for further development, and discuss and network at the biggest Talents event of the year.

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Carlo Chatrian, the Berlinale’s artistic director, and Mariette Rissenbeek, the gathering's executive director, welcome the Talents with open arms: “At the Berlinale, we care about films as much as we do about the collective processes that shape these stories. Our lasting relationships with those behind and in front of the camera are what we wish to express and nurture with Berlinale Talents.”

The 255 Talents encompass a wide variety of professionals – more precisely, 113 directors, 50 producers, 15 actors, two screenwriters, 16 cinematographers, 14 editors, 12 set designers, nine sales agents, seven score composers, nine sound designers and eight film critics - along with 40 film projects in development. They will receive the necessary mentoring support from the Project Labs and constitute a highly dynamic group in order to justify this year’s topic. “Collectives” are becoming more commonplace in many aspects of life, and this can be seen in examples of activism, such as the Experimental Film Society in Tehran or the founders of the Brazilian Collective of Female Cinematographers. Apart from the cultural importance of these and other initiatives, they also aim to have a social impact and enable lasting change.

Some of the selected talents are more active collectively, such as Kosovar-born, Swiss-based director Fisnik Maxhuni, who focuses more on a “New European Cinema” that has its own film language, which emerges through an exploration of the similarities between countries, rather than the differences between them. Also, Azeri director Maria Ibrahimova is the founder of the “Women in Motion” project, which intends to help women in Azerbaijan to kick-start their filmmaking careers, and Peruvian editor Alex Cruz works with the HDPERU production company, which focuses on films that protect the rights of indigenous groups and the environment.

Finally, Berlinale Talents, which can boast nearly 8,500 alumni to date, champions sustainable promotion and has announced the renewal of its partnership with ARRI for the next three years. The company will support the initiative with light and camera systems, as well as experts to guide the Talents at the Camera Studio. As Markus Zeiler, a member of ARRI’s executive board, underlines: “The increasing volume of film and series productions poses great challenges to training talents in the cinematography and lighting sectors. With Berlinale Talents, we can build an outstanding basis, since this is where talent development is put into practice to create sustainable success.”

The full programme for Berlinale Talents will be available on 11 February 2020.

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