Pandemic cinema: How Berlinale films reflect COVID

Most movies at the Berlin Film Festival are set in a coronavirus-free world, but Radu Jude, Denis Cote and Natalie Morales picked up on the past year's vibe.

Making a feature film is a notoriously long process. Once the script has been written, productions may spend several years organizing funding before the film is actually shot, and then edited.

With specific restrictions changing from week to week, references to the world's pandemic lifestyle in a film could very well feel outdated by the time the work is completed and distributed. It's therefore unsurprising that most films selected for the Berlin International Film Festival are set in a universe that's oblivious to the ongoing pandemic.

There are nevertheless a few films that reflect the past year's social habits.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, a competition entry by Silver Bear-winning Romanian director Radu Jude, fulfills the promises of its title right with its opening scene: a homemade porn video.

In the following scene, the woman from the sex tape is at a market. Just like everyone else, she is wearing a mask. As she wanders through the streets of

Bucharest in observational documentary-style shots, the face mask is also ubiquitous.

Jude hadn't originally scripted his film that way, though. That introductory sequence was actually shot a few weeks before last year's spring lockdown.

Romania then faced a second wave of COVID-19 at the beginning of July, so the filmmaker decided to shoot his film as quickly as possible during the summer — even if that meant skipping additional funding options that would have been available later.

Since the number of cases was rising, the director also chose to integrate the masks into his narrative to protect his team. "Morally, it felt better to limit the risk for the actors," Jude told DW, adding that he was proud that no one got sick during the production. This was for him a "greater achievement" than speculating on how covering the actors' mouths would impact the film visually.

The film gains from this ethical decision. Jude decided to capture the moment with an "anthropological eye," creating a time capsule of this unique and iconic moment in history.

The woman in the sex tape is a teacher who faces her class's angry parents after the video starts circulating in the school. Since the film contrasts obscenity with Romanian society's hypocrisy towards social issues such as sexism, anti-Semitism and fascism, the face mask also takes on a symbolic dimension, standing in for all the things that are not openly addressed in the country. "It wasn't intended, but of course we knew the potential of this metaphor," said Jude.

The coronavirus paralyzed many productions over the past year. Those who did manage to complete their shoots between lockdowns had to apply safety guidelines developed for the film

A rare film with masked actors at the Berlinale: 'Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn'

Among others, Radu Jude bangs on the church, the army and nationalists in his film