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Rarely in recent decades has the festival circuit been as disrupted as it has in the past 12 months. A confluence of local and global issues — from war to inflation, political unrest to societal shifts — have created a perfect storm for many of these vital cultural platforms, leading to funding shortfalls, staff losses, major PR headaches and in some cases cancellation. Amid shifts in consumer and industry behavior, there are also broader existential questions being asked about the role and potency of festivals.

Since last year’s Cannes, we’ve seen flashpoints or upheaval at Sundance, Berlin, Hot Docs, Thessaloniki, IDFA, El Gouna, Cairo, Busan, Odessa and others. Questions have been hanging over the likes of Venice and Toronto but both have made positive announcements in recent weeks: the former by re-upping Alberto Barbera, the latter by confirming a cash injection to bolster its market.

During this year’s turbulent Berlin Film Festival,...

Festival season 2024 is well underway, Insiders, as our team decamps to Berlin. That and plenty more news to report from around the world to follow. Jesse Whittock with you. Sign up for the Insider newsletter here.

Berlin Kicks Off

Protests on the red carpet: The build-up to the 74th Berlin Film Festival has been highly politicized and Thursday evening’s opening ceremony was no different. The ceremony began with a red carpet awash with political statements. The festival held what it described as a ‘Filmmakers for Democracy, Diversity, and Peaceful Togetherness’ demonstration featuring between 50 and 60 filmmakers. Meanwhile, a series of attendees used their time in front of media pens to display their own political messages. The most eye-catching included American filmmaker Eliza Hittman, last at Berlin with her Silver Bear-winning Never Rarely Sometimes Always, who had ‘ceasefire now’ stitched to the back of her dress. The message was a reference...

The Berlin Film Festival officially kicked off Thursday evening with an eventful opening ceremony at the Berlinale Palast theater in the German capital.

After a divisive build-up to the fest, the opening ceremony was, in contrast, a relatively conventional affair. High-profile attendees included veteran German filmmakers Wim Wenders and Fatih Akin, Phantom Thread actress Vicky Krieps, and international jury president Lupita Nyong’o alongside her fellow jury members Brady Corbet, Ann Hui, Christian Petzold, Albert Serra, Jasmine Trinca and Oksana Zabuzhko.

The evening’s opening film was Small Things Like These, starring Cillian Murphy, who was in attendance with producer Matt Damon and co-star Emily Watson. Directed by Tim Mielants (Peaky Blinders), Small Things Like These is the first Irish film to open the Berlinale.

Related: ‘Small Things Like These’ Review: Cillian Murphy Plays A Father In Torment In ’80s-Set Irish Trauma Tale

Before the pic opened, the crowd inside the...

After kicking off with a feisty press conference, the Berlin Film Festival got even more political as three groups of protesters descended on Potsdamer Platz before the start of opening night festivities.

The first saw around 50 members of the film industry walk the red carpet holding hands. The demonstrators then turned on their phone flashlights and chanted “defend democracy!” while the same phrase was displayed on the Palast’s big screen. The red carpet’s music was turned off for the occasion, and the demonstrators wore pins stating “movies unite, hate divides.” Berlinale organizers had planned this demonstration to highlight their decision to disinvite members of the far-right political party AfD.

Among the talent was Jonathan Berlin, Meret Becker, Luisa Gaffron, Pegah Ferydoni, Roshanak Khodabakhsh Anne Leppin, Jannis Niewöhner, Murali Perumal, Katja Riemann, Lavinia Wilson and Jessica Schwarz.

A group of demonstrators at Berlin Film Festival chant “defend democracy” ahead of tonight’s opening ceremony.

Network: PBS. Episodes: Ongoing (hour). Seasons: Ongoing. TV show dates (Us): January 18, 2015 — present. Series status: Has not been cancelled. Performers include: James Norton, Robson Green, Morven Christie, Tessa Peake-Jones, Al Weaver, Kacey Ainsworth, Tom Austen, Seline Hizli, Pip Torrens, Pheline Roggan, Fiona Button, Oliver Dimsdale, and Lorne MacFayden. TV show description: Set in the 1950s, in the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester, the Grantchester TV show is a British detective drama based on James Runcie's Grantchester Mysteries. The story centers on sleuthing Anglican vicar Sidney Chambers (Norton) and his partner in crime-fighting, Detective Inspector Geordie Keating (Green). Young, amiable, attractive, and appealing, Sidney loves warm beer, hot jazz, and his black Labrador, Dickens. A modest and diligent man, Sidney works hard...

Film revolving around Native American community, directed by Damian John Harper, to shoot early 2015.

Paris-based production company Les Films d’Ici 2 has boarded Us director Damian John Harper’s upcoming drama In the Middle of the Road.

The film, which is lead produced by German Jonas Weydemann is due to shoot in New Mexico in early 2015 and centres on a Native American, Iraqi War veteran’s difficult return to his family’s reservation where he stands up to an abusive grandfather.

It was among 12 projects presented at the Paris Coproduction Village last week.

“We’ve been in talks to work together for some time and we decided to make it official here,” said Weydemann, who produces under the Weydemann Bros. banner, the Cologne-based company he runs with his brother Jakob D.Weydemann.

Under the deal, Les Films d’ici 2 and Weydemann Bros are hoping to tap into the joint French-German mini-treaty fund backed by France’s National...

Soul Kitchen directed by Fatih Akin (Head-On and The Edge of Heaven!) centers around Greek-German restaurant owner Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos), who faces a series of problems. His restaurant is failing, he is being plagued by tax collectors, he has thrown out his back and his girlfriend Nadine (Pheline Roggan) suddenly moves to Shanghai for a new job. But things start to look up when he brings in a new chef, Shayn (Birol Ünel) and the hip art crowd from next door "embraces his revamped culinary concept".  Once the restaurant stabilizes, he can focus on Nadine. So while...

What at first appears to be simple good-naturedness pervading Fatih Akin's "Soul Kitchen" starts to seem, as the film rolls on, like something crazier and more generous. The closest I can come to describing it is as a near-spiritual embrace of human failings, their inevitability and the fact that most of us still want to live together in great, messy communities anyway.

For instance: At one point, a character who's responsible for essentially ruining the life of our hero, genial Greek-German slacker Zinos Kazantsakis (Adam Bousdoukos), runs into Zinos' brother Illias (Moritz Bleibtreu, of "Run, Lola, Run") in jail, where Illias has been serving out a sentence for burglary. Instead of punching the guy, which seems, in context, not undeserved, Illias gives him a wink in greeting, and he responds by earnestly asking Illias to tell his brother hello. Illias says he will.

Such is life. And that sloppy,...

German filmmaker Fatih Akin, noted for award-winning dramas like “The Edge of Heaven,” takes a stab at comedy and romance with “Soul Kitchen.” The experiment in lunacy and laughs lacks character development and clean story construction, and subsists on antic set pieces that try to wring laughs but come up dry.

The title refers to the comfort-food restaurant owned by the oafish Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos, who co-wrote the script with director Akin). With his journalist girlfriend Nadine (Pheline Roggan) on assignment in Shanghai, Zinos throws out his back while attempting to lug around a dishwasher in his restaurant kitchen. Too injured to cook, he hires a passionate but ill-tempered chef, Shayn (Birol Ünel), but his sophisticated concoctions turn away the restaurant’s regulars. Meanwhile, Zinos’ convict brother Illias (Moritz Bleibtreu) weasels his way onto the wait staff so that he can get extended parole. Tensions mount when both tax and...