Berlinale 2020 is behind us! This international A-category festival is considered one of the three most important film festivals in the world. Every year since 1950, it has brought together and recognized the best of the world of cinema and, among all festivals, every year serves the most world premieres.
this year's 70th edition of the festival crowned the film with the Golden Bear There Is No Evil (Sheytan Vojud Nadarad, 2020) Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof. The range of "must see" films that participated in the Berlinale 2020 festival is, of course, extensive.
But this is a strawberry pick of the top ten that you absolutely must see!
Drama
The American Sector (2020)
Berlin wall it may indeed have fallen in November 1989, but it was never truly destroyed; it was just exhibited. More than 30 years later, fragments of the concrete wall that once separated East and West Germany are scattered around the world. Dozens of them can be found in the US alone. One part is hidden in the green forests of Pennsylvania, the other is on display at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. The Hilton Hotel in Dallas keeps a piece in the lobby where people walk by without even knowing they are walking so close to a historical artifact. A piece is even stored in the premises of Universal Studios in Florida - right behind the Hard Rock Cafe.
Stephens and Velez's film is a journey through the remains of history, is a gentle meditation on the relationship between history and the ideals that help shape it.
Historical drama
Charlatan (Šarlatán, 2020)
The Polish director of the movie Charlatan, Agnieszka Holland, has been nominated three times for the Oscar. The movie Charlatan is about the Czech healer Jan Mikolášek (Ivan Trojan), who comes into conflict with government authorities because he treats patients with medicinal plants. This moving yet intimate epic explores the dark side of Mikolášek's struggle to balance his conscience and his calling.
Drama
DAU. Natasha (2020)
The most anticipated project of this year's Berlinale, dubbed the "Soviet Truman Show", certainly did not disappoint. Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovskiy initially wanted to make a traditional biography of Soviet physicist Lev Landau, but the production later turned into an epic production project and eventually the most ambitious film experiment in history, which was 10 years in the making.
The main protagonist is Natasha, who works in a secret research institute in the Soviet Union. Nataša drinks a lot, likes to talk about love and has an affair. This is a story about violence. Radical and provocative. The film takes the form of a sexually explicit drama with a dizzying "Orwellian" twist in its final act. The film was at the festival Berlinale 2020 awarded with silver bears.
Documentary film
Gangster (2020)
Gunda is a silent documentary shot in black and white with an Arri Mini camera. The film follows the life of animals on a farm. She is the main "actress". the mother of a pig named Gunda, which the film crew first visited when she gave birth to a dozen cubs. In the next three months, the team visited the farm three more times and monitored the growth and development of the piglets. The main message of the film is: "Don't eat animals!" He also invited Kossakovsky to create his vegan testament Joaquin Phoenix.
Thriller/horror
The Intruder (El Prófugo, 2020)
Based on the book proposal The Lesser Evil, the Argentinian director filmed the story of Inés, a young woman who, after a traumatic episode while traveling with her partner, begins mix between the real and the imaginary. Her character is haunted, drugged and hurt. The film metaphorically plays with the ways men control women. This psychosexual thriller is, as the director said, “simultaneously dream and wakefulness, fiction, facts and truth”. Above all, it is a reflection of a breakthrough directing talent.
Science Fiction
Last and First Men (2020)
Two billion years from now the human race finds itself on the brink of extinction. Almost all that remains in the world are lonely and surreal monuments that carry their message to the desert.
Jóhann Jóhannsson's work exceeded all expectations. This undisputed Icelandic talent sadly passed away in 2018 when he was only 48 years old. Before his death, he completed his last product, which raised his oeuvre to a completely new level. The dazzling apocalyptic mix of black and white images of Yugoslav architecture and Tilda Swinton's deep voice, and the fact that the film was completed after the director's death, tells us that a film proof of strength, fortitude and wisdom that is stronger than death itself.
Drama
My Little Sister (Schwesterlein, 2020)
Lisa said goodbye to her desire to become a playwright and to the Berlin art scene. She now lives in Switzerland with her husband, who runs an international school. When her twin brother falls ill, she returns to Berlin. It's a movie heartbreaking family drama about twins – Sven, a famous theater actor who is battling cancer, and Lisa (Nina Hoss), who takes care of him. Not only is Lisa trying to save her brother, but she's also trying to save her marriage while raising two more grumpy kids. Hoss played her role superbly, intimately, empathetically, and definitely worthy of an award.
Fantasy movie
Pinocchio (Pinocchio, 2019)
In Italy, the film has already become a real hit. Director Mateo Garrone has immortalized Carlo Collodi's fairy tale in an epic visual version that will delight even demanding viewers of all ages. Geppetto, the toymaker who also sculpted Pinocchio, is played by the one and only Roberto Benigni.
Little Pinocchio goes to the circus instead of school after his father mistakes his jacket for a spelling book. There is also a good fairy (Marine Vacth), a circus leader... All characters have masterfully sculpted images, costume design and prosthetics are superb. The film received as many as 15 nominations for the Donatello David awards.
Drama
Evil does not exist (Sheytan vojud nadarad, 2020)
A brilliant anthology by Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, who has been barred from leaving the country since 2017, reveals four stories of soldiers awaiting their execution and they wonder to what extent individual freedom can be expressed in a despotic regime and its seemingly inevitable threats. What happens at the point of no return, how does waiting for execution affect those closest to you? The film won at this year's festival golden bear.
Drama
The Woman Who Ran (Domangchin yeoja, 2020)
Gamhee, a young woman who has been alone for a few days without her husband in Seoul for the first time in five years, decides to visit three friends. As Gamhee travels from one to the other, explores how spending time alone is freeing. Through friendly dialogues that flow independently of each other, above and below the surface, the depth of this young Korean woman's life is revealed.
Korean director Hong Sang showed through tiny, unpredictable moments a complex and deep whole. The almost amateurish quality and lightness of the film's flow gives a sense of superficiality. However, the structure of the film reveals an unsuspected study the depths of the lives of shrewd, seemingly simple women who struggle with a whole host of nasty men.
