House of Talents

From the impossibility of nothingness to the seeming nothingness of death. In this episode, we sit down with renowned Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. True to Apichatpong’s unconventional narrative work, this talk draws us into meditative spaces, inviting us to slowly question filmmaking habits and the rat-race of expectations we are all involved in.

Time to break with old habits. In this episode, we hear from film professionals who are committed to challenging norms and promoting alternative ways of thinking about filmmaking. They boldly engage in discussions on representation in the industry and although change doesn’t happen overnight, what these African and indigenous filmmakers, curators, queer collectives and people behind community cinemas sketch out are the many paths that lead to it.

In this episode, we sit down with one of French cinema’s most prominent voices: Céline Sciamma. Drawing on Anglo-Saxon and French filmmaking traditions, the writer and director (Water Lilies, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Petite Maman) portrays characters caught up in new desires, bridging childhood and adulthood. At Berlinale Talents 2021, we got the chance to ask Céline about her artistic coming-of-age before we turned to her “delicate machines”: that is to say, her films.

Our journey through the Berlinale Talents archive begins with the award-winning Brazilian screenwriter, director, critic and festival organiser Kleber Mendonça Filho (Aquarius; Bacurau). The precarious political situtuation in Brazil means filmmakers are on the verge of a crisis, yet find themselves in one of the best moments of Brazilian cinema. Within the frame of ‘Collectives’ during Berlinale Talents 2020, Kleber Mendonça Filho reflects on the artistic responces to the societal tensions and inequalities in conversation with Vincenzo Bugno, Head of the World Cinema Fund, and discusses a desire within the film industry to support dissident creative voices and challenge established hierarchies.