13 films offer a first look at Generation’s competition programs. Six feature-length and seven short films have already been confirmed, involving a total of 19 production countries. Mascha Halberstad, Philippe Lesage, Ingrid Pokropek, Aslı Özarslan, Luck Razanajaona and Soleen Yusef present new films.
“Between gentle insistence on stubbornness and angry rebellion, we encounter protagonists who take very different paths, but are united in not wanting to make peace with the state of things. In a world that is out of control, the films open up new perspectives on what is and what could be,” says section head Sebastian Markt, commenting on the outlines of the program so far.
Disco Africa: une histoire malgache (Disco Africa: A Malagasy Story) follows a young miner on a journey to his hometown, where he is not only confronted with his family past. Luck Razanajaona’s debut – a project supported by the World Cinema Fund – which brings together contemporary images with the history of colonialism, resistance and independence, is the first feature film from Madagascar in the Berlinale program. Two contributions present young transnational cinema from Germany: In Aslı Özarslan’s congenial film adaptation of Fatma Aydemir’s successful novel Ellbogen (Elbow), the young Hazal repeatedly runs into closed doors in her hunger for life until the pent-up frustration is released in a momentous act of anger.
Mona, who fled Syria with her Kurdish family, finds herself in Soleen Yusef’s Sieger Sein (Winners) in a school in Wedding, Berlin, where a teacher recognizes her soccer talent. To triumph, the group of fierce girls must learn what it means to be a team.
Three young people spend the summer in the remote Quebec country house of an established director in Comme le feu (Who by Fire). Philippe Lesage’s latest film creates an intense drama of epic breadth between the confines of the chalet and the vastness of the wilderness.
Ingrid Pokropek sends the young protagonist of her debut film Los tonos mayores (The Major Tones) on an emotional treasure hunt. It begins with a mysterious message that the girl seems to receive through an implant in her arm; At the end there is the discovery that meaning is something that we have to reinvent again and again.
After launching in 2022 with Oink! has opened the Kplus competition, Mascha Halberstad returns to the Generation program this year with her new animated film Fox and Hare Save the Forest, not without her own anarchic humor.
Threads of related and complementary themes and forms also run through the contributions to the short film competitions, the other essential program part of Generation. At a provincial hen party, a young girl learns something about the society in which she grows up – but more than just porcelain is broken. Two sisters who are exposed to paternal violence find a way to escape the spiral – and to each other (Cura sana). Sukoun (Amplified) makes the perception of the world of a young hearing-impaired karate fighter, which has become fragile after an attack, understandable in an audio-visually impressive way. In his rebellion, a Jewish youth in the declining Soviet Union encounters hostility that hits him both through and beyond the authorities of political power (Obraza). In Brazil, two young people find tenderness and solidarity in the face of state neglect and repression (Lapso). In Muna, the eponymous protagonist discovers a surprising connection to a relative she was never able to get to know. And kiss? First of all, the children find Yuck!: Beurk! (Yuck!) – although, on the other hand…
Next year, participants in the Berlinale school project will also receive exclusive access and film educational advice on Generation’s films. With a focus on the students’ festival experience, creative and, above all, individual project work is created that represents practical and innovative forms of dealing with film in school lessons and is available to anyone interested on the website of the long-standing cooperation partner VISION KINO – Network for Film and Media Education .
The first 13 films of Generation 2024
Press department
December 20, 2023
2023-12-20 11:49:17
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