Sean Penn Ukraine doc to premiere at Berlin film fest
Sean Penn will premiere a documentary he filmed in Kyiv featuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at next month’s Berlin film festival, organisers said when they unveiled the full programme on Monday.
The Berlinale, as the February 16-26 event is known, will shine a spotlight on the Russian war of Ukraine as it passes its first anniversary.
Penn’s “Superpower” is billed as “the chronicle of a film project that reality forced to change into something less controllable but more meaningful”.
It will be the most prominent among several Ukraine-themed entries at the 73rd annual festival.
Berlinale co-director Carlo Chatrian told reporters the film was shot under “very difficult circumstances”.
Penn was in Kyiv to shoot a documentary in late February 2022 when the Russian onslaught began.
The two-time Oscar winner was photographed attending a government news conference in Kyiv, and could be seen meeting Zelensky in a video posted to the Ukrainian president’s Instagram account.
The 62-year-old actor shot the documentary for Vice Studios with directing partner Aaron Kaufman.
SOLIDARITY WITH UKRAINIANS, IRANIANS
Penn has previously attracted controversy as a result of his forays into current affairs, especially after he and Mexican-american actress Kate del Castillo interviewed Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman while the Mexican drug lord was on the run.
In 2018, Penn was reported to be in Turkey making an as-yet-unreleased documentary about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
“Superpower” will screen in the Berlinale Special section of the festival, out of competition. Chatrian said the event, Europe’s first major cinema showcase of the year, would spotlight several documentaries and feature films from Ukrainian directors, in addition to works from dissident Iranian film-makers, in a sign of “solidarity”.
It will also provide free exhibition space to Ukrainian industry representatives at the festival’s sprawling European Film Market, and highlight co-production possibilities with Ukraine’s embattled directors, the Berlinale said.
A handful of Russian directors living in exile will also be in attendance but the festival has barred delegations and reporters with direct ties to the Russian or Iranian governments.
Chatrian unveiled the 18 films vying for the festival’s prestigious Golden and Silver Bear prizes — an “eclectic” slate of feature films and documentaries from around the world.