Berlinale 2021
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Pre- and Post-Pandemic Rohmer: Ryūsuke Hamaguchi on Berlinale 2021 Premiere Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
Even after two of his features were derailed by the pandemic, Japanese director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi had a busy 2020. After breaking out with his 2016 film Happy Hour, Hamaguchi returned in 2018 with what he described as his first “commercial film,” Asako I and II, as opposed to a smaller, independent production. Adapted from a Haruki Murakami short story, Drive My Car is Hamaguchi’s current “commercial” project, while the smaller-scale Berlinale 2021 premiere Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is his smaller, independent film. (When not in production on these films, Hamaguchi, along with director Kōji Fukada and two of his Happy Hour producers, helped spearhead a […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 4, 2021 -
Berlinale 2021: Mr. Bachmann and His Class, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky
The ongoing Berlinale is, as you’re likely aware, the first ever to be held virtually. Which also makes Berlin the first of the Big Three film festivals to go this route, seeing as last year Cannes was cancelled and Venice managed to squeeze in a smaller-scale edition between waves of this most pernicious of pandemics. Although the Berlinale has always prided itself on being a public festival, this time it’s a professionals-only affair—a repeat in the city’s cinemas, accessible to all, is planned for June—and the customary eleven days have been reduced to five. Parsing the rationale behind this split […]
by Giovanni Marchini Camia on Mar 3, 2021 -
Wuhan, Different Everyday: Shengze Zhu on Berlinale 2021 Premiere A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces
Despite relocating to Chicago in 2015, Shengze Zhu has focused on her hometown of Wuhan throughout her career. Her first feature, Out of Focus (2014), is a creative portrait of the school-life of children from low-income families and the troubles they face. Her second, Another Year (2016), uses long takes to document the mealtimes of migrant worker families. Both are set in Wuhan but were made after she first left China in 2010 to study filmmaking in Columbia, Missouri. For Present.Perfect (2019), she widened her lens, creating a montage of live-streamers living across China entirely from desktop recordings of their broadcasts. […]
by Matt Turner on Mar 2, 2021
