2018 Berlinale Day 3: Saturday 17 Feb

Hi again – herewith retro blogpost about Day 3 at the 2018 Berlinale:

Saw four films today – one brilliant, 2 very good and one that I’d have been better avoiding. The two documentaries I saw today are both very strong films concerned with the need for the truth about the past and the preoccupations of younger generations with this.

***** El silencio de los otros/The Silence of Others (USA/Spain 2018, dirs. Almudena Carracedo & Robert Bahar). Panorama Dokumente.

Directors of El silencio de los otros (on left)

Part of the team line-up of El silencio de los otros

- the best film I’ve seen in the Festival so far – a really powerful documentary following the long road to securing judicial recognition of crimes committed by the Nationalist perpetrators during the Spanish Civil War and by the Franco regime during the nearly 40 years of the dictatorship. Unlike post-dictatorship countries like Chile and Argentina where part of the process of (re-)building democracy has involved investigation and judicial review of human rights crimes committed under the former regimes, there has been no such process in post-Franco Spain, notwithstanding the passing of the Law of Historical Memory (Ley de Memoria Historica) in 2007. This situation is due to the nature of the ‘Transition’ from dictatorship to democracy following Franco’s death in 1975 and the ‘pact of silence’ which not only granted amnesty to political prisoners but also impunity to those acting for the regime. Many of the same politicians and other establishment figures from the regime continued in place despite the Transition and countless acts of violence and repression in the name of the regime have never been recognised or investigated. The film focuses on a handful of the many documented cases of torture, the theft of babies whose mothers had been informed that their babies had died, and victims of and burial in unnamed, often mass graves. The film points out that Spain has the second highest number of unmarked graves in the world (the highest being Cambodia). The campaign to bring these cases to light and justice by recourse to international law is the focus of this powerful and moving film. A must see and surely a very strong contender within the Panorama section.  See the trailer here: El silencio de los otros
and here is a link to the Asociacion para la Recuperacion de Memoria Historica (A.R.M.H) for more information on the recovery of victims of Francoism and related topics: ARMH

 

Post-Festival update: 
delighted to see that this film very deservedly won both the 
Panorama Audience Award for Documentary Film and the 
Peace Film Prize!!

****Je vois rouge/I See Red People (France/Bulgaria 2018), dir. Bojina Panatoyova)

Impressive Sony Centre where some of the main Festival
cinemas are located - saw the 2 documentaries
in the Cinestar here

Also a documentary –the filmmaker is concerned with uncovering aspects of the past that she felt had been hidden from her by her parents who left Bulgaria (where her father was a well-known artist) shortly after the end of the Iron Curtain years when she was only 8. She returns to Sofia to find out more about Bulgaria and her curiosity about the relative freedoms that her parents had enjoyed during the communist period – her father was an established artist. As she delves into the past and finds links between her parents and the secret service. The film focuses as much on the information she uncovers as on the way that this affects her relationship with her parents.

****The Bookshop (Spain/UK/Germany 2017, dir. Isabel Coixet)

A restrained period piece set in small town on the coast in 1950s England where Florence (Emily Mortimer) determines to open a bookshop despite the resistance of some powerful members of the community. Strong cast includes Bell Nighy playing a reclusive who becomes her ally - through their shared love of reading and books. Based on the novel by Penelope Fitzgerald (1978). Beautifully shot and acted.

River’s Edge (Japan 2008, dir. Isao Yukisada)

One to miss as far as I am concerned – depressing and violent vision of a young people in 1990s Tokyo.

View of the famous   communications 
tower from  Cubix cinema at Alexanderplatz              

More to follow shortly!!