Reverse Angle:
A look at the 22nd Berlin & Beyond Film Festival.
Organizers say San Francisco’s Berlin & Beyond Film Festival is now the best-attended Germanlanguage film festival outside of Europe. For the 22nd edition, Feb. 9-15, they’re hoping to maintain their annual average of more than 10,000 admissions.
“San Francisco has a great support for international and independent cinema,” says festival director Sophoan Sorn. “There are (so many) film festivals that take place here, small and large … that contributes to attending other cinema events here in the Bay Area.”
This year, the festival features appearances by German actors Lars Eidinger (attending with the centerpiece feature “The Bloom of Yesterday”) and Frederick Lau (with two films, “My Brother Simple” and “Text for You”). Many of the presentations are regional and U.S. premieres.
One San Francisco premiere is “That Trip We Took With Dad,” about two Romanian brothers in 1968 taking their ill father to the divided Berlin for medical care. Along the way, they meet West Berliners with a different view of communism than those living through the Ceausescu government. Festival President Sigrid Savelsberg says, “I really love that film very much. The different people that come together and have different points of view — it has a lot of humor. It’s different from the normal kind of Hollywood production.”
Sorn regards opening night film “Welcome to Germany” as an important social comedy tackling the refugee issue.
“The director has taken some bold liberties because that’s not a light topic in Europe,” he says. “I myself am a refugee from Cambodia. I became festival director in 2010. I grew up in Stockton. I had founded a film festival there. … It’s now my eighth year with (Berlin & Beyond). I don’t come from any German background at all, but I love cinema.” Berlin & Beyond Film Festival: Feb. 9-11 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., San Francisco; Feb. 12 at the Shattuck Cinemas, 2230 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley; and Feb. 13-15 at the Goethe-Institut, 530 Bush St. #204, San Francisco. $9-$15 individual admissions; $250-$2,500 festival passes, (800) 838-3006, www. berlinbeyond.com
Trivia question
What 1979 Volker Schlöndorff adaptation of a Günter Grass novel was the first German winner of the best foreign-language film Oscar?
Female journalists do awards their way
The 2017 Alliance of Women Film Journalists EDA Awards (named for founder Jennifer Merin’s actress mother, Eda Reiss Merin, but also standing for “Excellent Dynamic Activism”), which were announced this month, have always had separate categories to honor female filmmakers.
They also have “special mention” awards such as “Actress Most in Need of a New Agent” (Kate Winslet, in response to “Wonder Wheel” and “The Mountain Between Us”) and “Most Egregious Age Difference Between the Lead and the Love Interest” (Chloe Grace Moretz, 20, and John Malkovich, 64, in Louis C.K.’s unreleased “I Love You, Daddy”).
The AWFJ’s standard awards looked as many have, honoring “The Shape of Water” (film, director), “Get Out” (original screenplay), “Call Me by Your Name” (adapted screenplay) and many of the leading acting contenders.
Their Female Focus Winners included Greta Gerwig for both writing and directing “Lady Bird” and Brooklynn Prince from “The Florida Project” for breakthrough performance. They also honored best animated female (Parvana of “The Breadwinner”) and outstanding achievement by a woman in the film industry: Rose McGowan, Ashley Judd “and all who spoke out against sexual harassment.”
Toward that end, their special mentions included Hall of Shame nods for “Sexual Tormentors: Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Brett Ratner, et al.”
Chronicle Sunday Datebook Editor Leba Hertz and Chronicle contributors Pam Grady and Jessica Zack are members of the AWFJ.
Trivia answer
“The Tin Drum.”