Talents Tanks
The Talents Tanks are Berlinale Talents’ inspiring design thinking format. Created to encourage our Talents to reflect on some of the industry’s most pressing issues, the Talents Tanks return this year under the banner “A Film Community of the Many.”
In active exchange among each other and with partners and guests from the industry, the group is learning about and rethinking existing approaches to establish equity, diversity and inclusion in the film industry and gain a better understanding of their own capacities to create sustainable change.
Over three consecutive mornings, Talents and guests explore their strengths and resources, and how these may be used to foster equality, diversity, and inclusion on film sets and beyond.
The talent tanks allowed me (and I'm sure most people) the ability to be vulnerable with complete strangers. The fact that we all came from similar levels of experience and had similar levels of insecurity about our own artistic pathways allowed us to talk candidly about what we hope for the future of cinema. Surviving as an artist can be scary but knowing that there are so many others in the same position who are unrelenting in their pursuit of image making, while also trying to sustain yourself is encouraging.Talent, 2023
The 203 Talents and the guests meet for a moderated in-person event comprising both large and small-scale group formats. Coming from over 68 countries and 14 film disciplines, balanced in genders and diverse in their cultural backgrounds, a great variety of voices forms the basis of all discussions.
The Talents Tanks are moderated by Thomas Biniasz. The methodology behind the Tanks has been developed by Berlinale Talents in cooperation with Thomas Biniasz and adapt methodical approaches from the fields of philosophy, personality and organisational development to the individual needs and topics of filmmakers and their ways to apply peer learning and change management (all copyrights reserved).
I feel connected and relaxed with my co-Talents. In general, I feel like being an artist is a tough job, yet the Talents Tanks were able to give us a moment to relieve our brains and relate to one another as storytellers. We realised how many similarities we have despite our cultural differences.Talent, 2023
Looking back at the Talents Tanks in 2023, the heads of Berlinale Talents, Christine Tröstrum and Florian Weghorn, draw again a positive feedback:
"There is great agreement on the relevance of fair, diverse and ecologically considerate working methods in the crews as well as in artistic freedom in cinematic storytelling. But we experienced a new urgency and also sensitivity among the Talents to search for the deeper sources and resources that fuel these changes. Far beyond being a only a buzz word, the current generation of filmmakers offers truly sustainable solutions and demands to be able to take creative responsibility and at eye level with the big players, funders and institutions. As a bridge builder and door opener, Berlinale Talents will therefore continue to connect its community of almost 10,000 alumni with each other and the industry via further collective dialogue formats also throughout the year."
Please join our discussion: talentsfootprints@berlinale.de
