Coronavirus cases are rising across Europe, but Berlin’s European Film Market is still going ahead and, if EFM figures are to be believed, the industry is planning to come.
The EFM said Friday that its exhibition areas in Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau and the Marriott Hotel were “already largely booked out” for the 2022 in-person event, which will be held Feb. 10-17.
The 2022 Berlin Film Festival will also be held in-person, running Feb. 10-20. The EFM went online-only this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The 2021 Berlin Film Festival held an online version in February and an outdoor, in-person event in the summer.
As the first major film market of the year, Berlin 2022 will be a testing ground to see if producers, distributors and sales companies are willing to return en masse to in-person events. Hybrid markets, like Cannes this year, or online-only versions, such as the 2021 American Film Market, have been successful, and many have questioned whether the industry is ready to embrace the risks (and costs) of an in-person Berlin, particularly given the uncertainty surrounding the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
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The EFM, however, seems confident Berlin 2022 will be a success. Launching its market under the motto “It all (re)starts here,” organizers outlined a program that looks much like that of the pre-pandemic era, with screenings in local cinemas as well as online and a packed conference schedule that includes the popular EFM industry sessions that focus on issues transforming the film business worldwide.
The 2022 EFM will also see a return of its television section, the Berlinale Series Market, which will run Feb. 14-16 at Berlin’s Zoo Palast.
The Berlin Film Festival on Friday also revealed details of its 2022 retrospective and Berlinale Classics program. The retrospective “No Angels — Mae West, Rosalind Russell & Carole Lombard” — a look at the screwball comedy queens of the 1930s and 40s — will kick off Feb. 11, as will a 4K restored screening of Gregory La Cava’s 1936 classic My Man Godfrey, starring Lombard in a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination. Other highlights include Mae West iconic films
I’m No Angel (1933), Klondike Annie (1936) and Belle of the Nineties (1934) — the latter in a new 4K restored print from Universal Pictures — and several Rosalind Russell favorites, including Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday (1940), the Michael Curtiz-directed Four’s a Crowd (1938) and 1940 feature Hired Wide from director William A. Seiter.
As part of its 2022 Berlinale Classics lineup, the festival will show a restored version of the 1929 German silent film Brüder (Brothers) from director Werner Hochbaum. The movie, a depiction of the 1896/’97 Hamburg dockworkers strike, was groundbreaking in its use of nonprofessional actors and documentary-like scenes shot on location at the dockyards. The restored film will have its world premiere at Berlin’s Friedrichstadt-Palast, accompanied by a new musical score, written by Berlin composer Martin Grütter, which will be played live by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of conductor Raphael Haeger.
