Berlinale Opening Ceremony Starts Fest on a Hopeful Note With Sean Baker and Michelle Yeoh’s Moving Speeches, Love for Indie Cinema and Little Mention of Politics
Berlin Film Festival kicked off on Thursday night with a spirit of hope, despite festivalgoers braving cold and wet weather as a heavy rainstorm infiltrated the city.
Stars walking the red carpet — umbrellas and raincoats in tow — included Sean Baker, Bella Ramsey, Karim Aïnouz, Neil Patrick Harris, Radu Jude, Daniel Brühl and Lars Eidinger. Baker was on hand to award this year’s Honorary Golden Bear to Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh, appropriately sheathed on gold, who stars in his latest project, the film “Sandiwara” in collaboration with fashion house Self-Portrait.
As he arrived on stage, Baker praised the Berlinale for being “a festival that has always championed bold voices, risk takers, and artists who refuse to be put in a single box.”
“Which makes tonight’s honoree pretty much perfect,” he added. “Michelle Yeoh is a once-in a-generation screen presence, the kind who doesn’t just appear in movies, but the kind that redefines the temperature of the room.”
In accepting the award, Yeoh said to Baker that she looks forward to working with him again. “Just no sex scenes,” she laughed. Yeoh also noted that Berlin always champions bold artists, adding that when she was a young artist, Berlin welcomed her. Her voice broke when she got personal: “A part of me is still that young girl who simply wanted to make her parents proud. My father is no longer here to see this moment. But I carry him with me, his discipline, his steadiness, his belief that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. And if he could see me here tonight, holding this Golden Bear, I know he would smile.” Yeoh received a standing ovation from the crowd, who were moved by her speech.
But one thing notably missing from the opening ceremony was an emphasis on politics and current events. Unlike last year, when Tilda Swinton made a fiery speech in which she denounced mass murder and Trump’s plan to make Gaza into a riviera, this edition’s ceremony focused on the art of filmmaking. The only big political stands came during the red carpet, when a group of festivalgoers held up signs featuring an anti-fascist quote from Hannah Arendt while actors Banafshe Hourmazdi, Jasmin Tabatabai, Pheline Roggan and author Düzen Tekkal bore signs saying “Free Iran.” During the actual ceremony, the mood was kept light, with Yeoh only hinting at a “divided world” in her speech.
The competition jury, led by German director Wim Wenders, was also reluctant to discuss political matters during their press conference earlier in the day. “We have to stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics,” Wenders responded. “But we are the counterweight of politics, we are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians.”
Festival chief Tricia Tuttle, who is celebrating her second year at the Berlinale helm, also put a focus on indie filmmaking during her time on stage. On stage, she said she felt that the industry is “in really great shape” as she teased this year’s festival lineup with co-directors of film programming Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz.
“It’s really thriving and it’s been so great to see so many filmmakers throughout the year out there and also in this room who have made such beautiful work, so varied,” Tuttle said, adding: “Of course, we do have some work to do as an industry on infrastructure, but I also am very, very encouraged by how resilient the industry is.”
The opening film is “No Good Men” by celebrated Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat. The rom-com follows a camerawoman at a Kabul TV station who becomes entangled with the station’s star male journalist just before the 2021 fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Of making the movie, which is the first Afghan film to feature an on-screen kiss, Sadat told Variety: “My film is not an agenda film. I didn’t try to put it in there for some special reason. But it’s interesting, because Afghan society is very conservative. So whenever something is not allowed, the demand for it is even higher.”
This edition’s lineup — though lacking last year’s double whammy of star power courtesy of Timothée Chalamet and Jacob Elordi — still offers several buzzy premieres, including the European debut of Charli xcx’s “The Moment” and Karim Aïnouz’s family satire “Rosebush Pruning,” which features Callum Turner, Elle Fanning, Riley Keough and more. Other films to watch include “At the Sea,” Kornél Mundruczó’s latest potential Oscar vehicle touting a fearless performance from Amy Adams, and the international bows of Sundance standouts “Josephine” and “The Weight.”
Stars walking the red carpet — umbrellas and raincoats in tow — included Sean Baker, Bella Ramsey, Karim Aïnouz, Neil Patrick Harris, Radu Jude, Daniel Brühl and Lars Eidinger. Baker was on hand to award this year’s Honorary Golden Bear to Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh, appropriately sheathed on gold, who stars in his latest project, the film “Sandiwara” in collaboration with fashion house Self-Portrait.
As he arrived on stage, Baker praised the Berlinale for being “a festival that has always championed bold voices, risk takers, and artists who refuse to be put in a single box.”
“Which makes tonight’s honoree pretty much perfect,” he added. “Michelle Yeoh is a once-in a-generation screen presence, the kind who doesn’t just appear in movies, but the kind that redefines the temperature of the room.”
In accepting the award, Yeoh said to Baker that she looks forward to working with him again. “Just no sex scenes,” she laughed. Yeoh also noted that Berlin always champions bold artists, adding that when she was a young artist, Berlin welcomed her. Her voice broke when she got personal: “A part of me is still that young girl who simply wanted to make her parents proud. My father is no longer here to see this moment. But I carry him with me, his discipline, his steadiness, his belief that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. And if he could see me here tonight, holding this Golden Bear, I know he would smile.” Yeoh received a standing ovation from the crowd, who were moved by her speech.
But one thing notably missing from the opening ceremony was an emphasis on politics and current events. Unlike last year, when Tilda Swinton made a fiery speech in which she denounced mass murder and Trump’s plan to make Gaza into a riviera, this edition’s ceremony focused on the art of filmmaking. The only big political stands came during the red carpet, when a group of festivalgoers held up signs featuring an anti-fascist quote from Hannah Arendt while actors Banafshe Hourmazdi, Jasmin Tabatabai, Pheline Roggan and author Düzen Tekkal bore signs saying “Free Iran.” During the actual ceremony, the mood was kept light, with Yeoh only hinting at a “divided world” in her speech.
The competition jury, led by German director Wim Wenders, was also reluctant to discuss political matters during their press conference earlier in the day. “We have to stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics,” Wenders responded. “But we are the counterweight of politics, we are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians.”
Festival chief Tricia Tuttle, who is celebrating her second year at the Berlinale helm, also put a focus on indie filmmaking during her time on stage. On stage, she said she felt that the industry is “in really great shape” as she teased this year’s festival lineup with co-directors of film programming Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz.
“It’s really thriving and it’s been so great to see so many filmmakers throughout the year out there and also in this room who have made such beautiful work, so varied,” Tuttle said, adding: “Of course, we do have some work to do as an industry on infrastructure, but I also am very, very encouraged by how resilient the industry is.”
The opening film is “No Good Men” by celebrated Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat. The rom-com follows a camerawoman at a Kabul TV station who becomes entangled with the station’s star male journalist just before the 2021 fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Of making the movie, which is the first Afghan film to feature an on-screen kiss, Sadat told Variety: “My film is not an agenda film. I didn’t try to put it in there for some special reason. But it’s interesting, because Afghan society is very conservative. So whenever something is not allowed, the demand for it is even higher.”
This edition’s lineup — though lacking last year’s double whammy of star power courtesy of Timothée Chalamet and Jacob Elordi — still offers several buzzy premieres, including the European debut of Charli xcx’s “The Moment” and Karim Aïnouz’s family satire “Rosebush Pruning,” which features Callum Turner, Elle Fanning, Riley Keough and more. Other films to watch include “At the Sea,” Kornél Mundruczó’s latest potential Oscar vehicle touting a fearless performance from Amy Adams, and the international bows of Sundance standouts “Josephine” and “The Weight.”