Award-winning directors Ava Duvernay (Selma), Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Cemetery of Splendour) will be among the filmmakers taking part in an online “Talents Tabletalk” program which will accompany the online version of the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival.
The trio will be joined online by this year’s Berlin Festival international jury, festival artistic director Carlo Chatrian, and filmmakers Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (star of Berlinale 2021 Panorama title Night Raiders), director Takeshi Fukunaga (2015 Panorama entry Out of My Hand), and documentarian Hepi Mita (2018’s Merata: How Mom Decolonized the Screen). The talk will be part of the festival’s Berlinale Talents program for up-and-coming filmmakers.
Related Stories
Other industry mentors taking part in the Berlinale’s online program include Kirsten Johnson, cinematographer on Oscar-shortlisted documentary Dick Johnson is Dead, sound designer Tim Nielsen (Avatar, The Lord of the Rings), actor Welket Bungué (Berlin Alexanderplatz), Isle of Dogs cameraperson Tristan Oliver, and The Queen’s Gambit set designer Uli Hanish.
The producers of the Berlin 2021 Encounters title Vị, Marie Dubas, Thao Dong, and Weijie Lai, will take industry participants through the complicated world of co-productions, outlining how they set up their film together with Vietnamese, Singaporean, Thai, Taiwanese, French, and German production companies.
205 invited talents from around the world, along with accredited Berlinale guests, can take part in the Berlinale Talents’ virtual events, which will screen online during the festival, from March 1-5. Public events can be screened for free at berlinale-talents.de
The European Film Market, which will also be an online-only affair this year, will offer up several new digital formats, including daily short videos —an “EFM Morning Brief” and an “EFM Daily” summary—highlighting key market happenings. The market is also producing a daily EFM podcast with interviews and discussions on industry topics.
For those dreading a full week of zoom meetings and digital overload, the EFM is programming in a bit of downtime: with a daily yoga break and calming film music sessions to reboot execs during the market. Industry participants can get accredited for the virtual EFM at www.efm-berlinale.de until the market wraps on March 5.
