The Berlinale has been present for many years with specially curated programs outside of the festival period. These activities trade as Berlinale Spotlight.
The Berlinale funding initiative is taking place for the sixth time since 2018 World Cinema Fund (WCF) at the world cinema festival “Around the World in 14 Films” with a Berlinale Spotlight as a guest. At its 19th edition (November 29th – December 7th, 2024 in Berlin), “Around the World in 14 Films” presents an all-day event on Sunday, December 1st Berlinale Spotlight: World Cinema Fund with four WCF-Contributions. There is also another one running WCF-Film at the festival.
The five WCF-Films come from filmmakers from the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Nigeria, Somalia and Iran: Pepe by Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias (Dominican Republic), Vietnam and South von Minh Quy Truong (Vietnam), The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos von The Agbajowo Collective (Nigeria), The Village Next to Paradise by Mo Harawe (Somalia) and Boomerang by Shahab Fotouhi (Iran).
Vincenzo Bugno, Leiter des WCFthat will be Berlinale Spotlight present on December 1st: “WCF-Films want to continually expand their audience with their images, film language and stories, because a variety of perspectives enriches our view of the world. The development of targeted audience strategies is an important part of the WCF-Activities. We work with great partners such as the ‘Around the World in 14 Films’ festival. We share this goal and great passion for cinema with them.”
The WCF has been promoting film production in regions with weak film infrastructure since 2004 and is committed to cultural diversity in German and European cinemas: WCF-Profile
“In a world that many people increasingly judge in rigid black and white patterns instead of following complex world events with more empathy and thirst for knowledge, real cultural diversity is existential. Supports the visibility of cultural diversity in cinema World Cinema Fund with clever and passionate commitment to the lesser-known, often overlooked film regions,” said the festival directors of “Around the World in 14 Films,” Susanne Bieger and Bernhard Karl.
The five WCF-Filme bei „Around the World in 14 Films”:
For his political fable Pepewhose protagonist is a hippopotamus, director Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias received the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2024 Berlinale. In the 1970s, drug lord Pablo Escobar brought four hippos from the USA to his private zoo in Colombia. Pepe tells this story and its consequences as a parable.
Was at more than 25 film festivals Vietnam and South by Minh Quý Trương. The Vietnamese-French-Swiss-German co-production about two loving coal workers who have to deal with national and familial trauma was censored by the Vietnamese film department for “a dark, entrenched and negative view” of the country and its people.
Comes from Nigeria’s mega-metropolis Lagos The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagoswhich had its world premiere in Toronto. The film by the seven-member Agbajowo Collective moves between thriller and magical realism. The story was inspired by the forced evictions and destruction of the Otodo Gbame fishing community in 2017.
The debut film The Village Next to Paradise by director Mo Harawe was the first Somali film invited to Cannes. The drama is about the everyday life of a family in Somalia and their desire to belong.
Artist and filmmaker Shahab Fotouhi celebrated with his drama Boomerang Premiere at the Venice Film Festival’s Venice Days. The film is set in Tehran and deals with the end of old relationships and the beginning of new ones. Sima looks for a new home for herself and her daughter Minoo, while her estranged husband reunites with a former lover while searching for a rare species of owl. In the meantime, Minoo meets a boy.
The 19th edition of “Around the World in 14 Films” will take place from November 29th to December 7th, 2024 in the cinema in the KulturBrauerei as well as in the delphi LUX, Neues Off and Rollberg cinemas.
The program will be published on November 8th: 14films.de
The World Cinema Fund is an initiative of the Federal Cultural Foundation and the Berlin International Film Festival, in cooperation with the Foreign Office and further support from the Goethe-Institut.
The special program WCF Europe was created with the support of the European Union’s Creative Europe MEDIA program. Thanks to additional funding from the Federal Foreign Office, the special program started in 2016 WCF Africa.
