27/01/2025 - Unspooling between 8 and 16 March, the festival’s 43rd edition will present the full back-catalogues of the Czech screenwriter and director, and the German filmmaker

Directors Alice Nellis and Christian Petzold

Czech screenwriter and director Alice Nellis and German filmmaker Christian Petzold are set to take centre stage in the Europe, Now! section of the upcoming Bergamo Film Meeting, which is unspooling between 8 and 16 March. The 43rd edition of the Italian gathering, which has focused attention on contemporary European arthouse cinema for years now, will present the full back-catalogues of these two authors, who will be travelling to Bergamo to attend the festival. The section will be further enriched by a selection of graduate movies from European film schools belonging to CILECT and by the Industry Meetings: a two-day event (running 12 and 13 March) geared towards industry professionals.

Screenwriter and director Alice Nellis is one of the most iconic names in contemporary Czech cinema. After attending FAMU, The Academy of Film and TV in Prague where she specialised in screenwriting and dramaturgy, Nellis began her cinematographic journey with short films and TV documentaries. Her feature film debut came in 2000 in the form of Eeny Meeny, which won the bronze Camunian Rose Award in league with another film in the 18th edition of the Bergamo Film Meeting. In 2002, she directed Some Secrets, which earned her the Czech Lion Prize for Best Screenplay as well as the New Directors Prize in San Sebastián. In 2007, Little Girl Blue [+see also:
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film profile], produced by the Oscar-winning director Jan Sverák, was praised for its delicacy and authenticity, while Mamas & Papas [+see also:
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film profile] (2010) offered up a reflection on the challenges of parenthood, followed by Perfect Days (2011). In 2014, she directed Angels and Adoption, a time-lapse documentary on parenting. One of her most ambitious works, The Seven Ravens [+see also:
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film profile], was then made in 2015 before the director helmed the HBO drama series Wasteland in 2016. A few years later, in 2022, she directed Buko and then returned to TV in 2024, writing and co-directing the mini-series Surrogates with Jiří Havelka, once again exploring the theme of parenthood.

Christian Petzold is the main exponent of "The Berlin School". In 1995, he graduated from the Academy of Film and TV in Berlin with a feature film for TV, Pilots. His transition to the big screen came with The State I Am In in 2000, a story about former RAF terrorists on the run and the first chapter in the so-called “Ghosts trilogy” which also includes Ghosts and Yella [+see also:
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film profile], and which most directly tackled the trauma of post-unification Germany. The film scooped the German Critics’ Prize, likewise awarded to Ghosts, while Yella’s protagonist, Nina Hoss, bagged herself the Silver Bear in the 2007 Berlinale.

But Petzold and his favourite actress Nina Hoss’ real consecration on an international scale came with Barbara [+see also:
film review
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interview: Christian Petzold
film profile], which won the Silver Bear for Best Director in the 2012 Berlinale. Set in the DDR in 1980, the film heralded a new trilogy, “Love at the time of oppressive systems”. The second chapter was Phoenix [+see also:
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making of
interview: Christian Petzold
film profile] in 2014, which nabbed the FIPRESCI Prize in San Sebastian, and the trilogy was concluded by Transit [+see also:
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interview: Christian Petzold
interview: Franz Rogowski
film profile] in 2018. This time round, the female role was entrusted to Paula Beer, who also acted in Petzold’s subsequent films. In 2020, the “Elements Trilogy” began by way of Undine [+see also:
film review
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interview: Christian Petzold
film profile], which also competed in the Berlinale, while the second instalment, Afire [+see also:
film review
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interview: Christian Petzold
film profile], in 2023, won the Grand Jury Prize in Berlin. Christian Petzold is now completing his new movie, Miroirs No. 3, which won’t be part of the “Elements Trilogy” but which will star Paula Beer, once again, in the shoes of a young pianist who loses her partner in a tragic road accident (read our article).

(Translated from Italian)