New revelations on the Nazi past of the Berlinale’s founding director Alfred Bauer

A study commissioned by the Berlinale management has now confirmed that Alfred Bauer, first director of the Berlin International Film Festival, had played a significant role in the Nazi propaganda machine. During the denazification process (1945-1947), he concealed his involvement with the Nazi regime, adamantly claiming to be an active opponent of the party, which he had actually joined in 1937. This revelation leads to questions on the German cultural

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Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced new representation and inclusion standards

With the goal to encourage equitable representation on and off screen, in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience, new standards for Oscars® eligibility in the Best Picture category were designed and now presented to the public. Inspired by the British Film Institute (BFI) Diversity Standards used for certain funding eligibility in the UK and eligibility in some categories of the British Academy of Film and Television

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TIFF raising the voice fuelled by Toronto’s cultural diversity

One of the greatest unique selling points of the TIFF is certainly its role in the ecosystem of the film industry, but even more so its understanding of being an immanent part of a city that is one of the world’s most culturally diverse cities. It is therefore not surprising that the 2020 edition also has as its overarching goal the most memorable experience possible for its audiences, and at

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Sundance breaking the rules

In view of all the uncertainty surrounding the next festival edition, Sundance new Film Festival’s director Tabitha Jackson recently presented her new far-reaching concept, which not only breaks some „rules“, but fundamentally questions the understanding of film festivals.The approach for the 2021 Festival you find here and further insights are provided by an IndieWire live screen talk with Keri Putnam and Tabitha Jackson

Step by step to more diversity

The film industry is currently undergoing gradual change, and not only on an international level. Yesterday it was the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , which achieved its post-#OscarsSoWhite goals of diversifying its membership, extending invitations to 819 film industry professionals, 45% of which are women, 36% from underrepresented ethnic and racial communities, and 49% international, from 68 countries. In the German film industry, too, the issue of

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Top programmers debate the value and responsibility of festivals in times of Corona

In the wake of the unpredictable development of the Corona Pandemic, the Spring and Summer Film Festivals were forced to quickly decide on one of three alternatives: „cancellation, postponement, or going online„. Most of the major international festivals ruled out completely cancelling their festivals. Out of their responsibility towards the filmmakers, the films and the markets, as well as their audience, many dared experiment online and have encountered some unexpected

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Moving online-a major strategy for film festivals in this time of crisis

„Moving film festivals online“ is a topic that has long been avoided, but now more than welcome in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a key finding of Screen International‘s online panel discussion of Thursday, April 9th, with three film festival heads: Tine Fischer, founder and director of CPH:DOX, Tricia Tuttle, director of the BFI Festivals including LGBTIQ+ festival Flare, and Jaie Laplante, executive director and director of programming

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We use the chance we don’t have – new forms of expression of film festivals in the crisis

As each day further film festivals announce their 2020 edition as online formats, more and more alternative, innovative programme forms are being found that reflect the process of the crisis. The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, for example, is placing a blog as an experiment for creating a forum in which many people can have their say and encourage reflection on society. The talks in German and English can be

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Fast forward to the film festival of the future

While some autumn film festivals seemingly completely unaffected by the crisis are announcing their early-bird offers, among the film festivals with dates in spring and summer there is perplexity, pragmatism in the sense of cancelling the 2020 edition, activism with partial offers to meet the expectations of the financiers up to a courageous, visionary attitude to use the need of the hour for a test run of film festival concepts

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