Berlin –
This year the Berlinale will present its emerging actors in a virtual event, prior to the festival, which will be divided between an edition restricted to professionals in the sector and an event with an audience in June.
The presentation of the Shooting Stars It will take place from February 23 to 25, sources from the festival announced. It will be in digital format, a week before the events scheduled for the cinema sector, between March 1 and 5.
The Berlinale management announced in December the postponement of what will be its 71st edition, which was initially going to be held from February 11 to 21.
The pandemic has forced to change the format; Instead of the usual festival open to the public, the March preview will be offered for the film industry. A face-to-face version will follow in June, the details of which will be specified according to the evolution of the pandemic.
“Sadly we cannot meet in person, but we invite you to follow and discover these European acting talents from home”, indicated, in a statement, the director of the Promotion of European Cinema (EFP), Sonja Heinen.
The selected actors are the Finnish Seidi Haarla, the French Nicolas Maury, the German Albrecht Schuch, the Hungarian Natasa Stork, the Irish Fionn O’Shea, Zygimante Elena Jakstaite, from Lithuania, the Dutch Martijn Lakemeier, the Macedonian Sara Klimoska, the Portuguese Alba Baptista and the Swede Gustav Lindh.
The Berlinale 2020 was the last of the major European festivals to be held according to schedule, in February last year, a few weeks before restrictions on public life became widespread.
For months, the organization of the festival kept the unknown of how the 71st edition was going to unfold. The authorities of the city-state and capital, Berlin, took it for granted since November that it could not be held according to schedule.
Finally, on December 18, its collegiate management – which the Italian Carlo Chatrian and the Dutch Mariette Rissenbeek have exercised since 2020 – unveiled the division in two formats.
It is a compromise formula, in the midst of the situation created by the increase in numbers of infections and fatalities observed persistently since the end of October.
In Germany, the cultural life, gastronomy and leisure sector have been closed since last November 2. In December the closure was extended to commercial life and only stores considered essential are still open. This situation will continue, at least, throughout the month of January.
Almost two million infections and 41,000 deaths
Since the first contagion verified in Germany, on January 27, they have been certified in the country, the most populous of the European Union (EU) with 83.2 million inhabitants, a total of 1,933,826 positives, according to data from the Institute Robert Koch (RKI) in Virology.
The number of fatalities is 41,577, while that of recovered patients exceeds 1.5 million.
The maximum number of infections in one day was recorded on December 18, with 33,777 positives, while the mark of deaths in 24 hours was reported last Friday with 1,188 people.
The average cumulative incidence in seven days is 164.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The maximum was 197.6, reached on December 22, but far from the 50 cases that the RKI marks as a criterion to consider that one is in a risk zone.
Berlin is close to the incidence of 200 weekly cases per 100,000 inhabitants, a situation from which it is planned to restrict mobility to a maximum radius of 15 kilometers from the city-state and “Land” limits. (I)
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