After traveling to Madrid, Salento (Italy) and Mainz, the 5^th edition of Visionär Film Festival Berlin is back in its hometown, Berlin, to bring a fresh and daring selection of international and local new talents!

From the 10th to the 14th of November at ACUDkino, Visionär Film Festival – Encounters with New Talents hosts a juicy edition with a wide program.

Visionär offers an international selection of 9 first or second feature films in competition for the Audience and Jury Awards (all Berlin or German premieres) and the Short Berlin Encounters, a selection of 16 Short Films made by Berlin filmmakers and video artists for the Audience Award. Albania (in co-production with Kosovo, Italy, Macedonia), Argentina, Chile, India (in co-production with Romania, Italy, Qatar), Iran, Serbia (in co-production with Slovenia, The Netherlands, France, Bosnia and Herzegovina), South Korea and Spain are the countries of this year’s edition.

Political and personal – if a clear division can really be marked, social, sensual and eventually artistic is the revolutionary vision of our new international talents. Films entertain us with their storytelling, but they are also a territory to reflect, investigate and rethink their language – both aesthetically and formally – and its healing potential. In the last year we learned a lot about the idea of going hybrid: hybrid events to face the global challenge, to resist and survive it, to the forced change of our times. Going hybrid as a sign of (a necessary) creativity is what we observe more and more often in the practice of filmmaking: The boundaries between documentary and fiction are now less defined; arthouse and genre films don’t necessarily exclude each other. As Visionär’s mission is to discover and support new auteurs’ gazes, the selected films will also reflect a bold and formally unconventional way of developing a discourse.

The section Short Berlin Encounters will be presented in three blocks under a common topic: Space, Time, Persona 

Two programs of international short films under the name of Panorama: Rebels complete this upcoming edition. This is a curated section which changes every year and intends to draw attention on specific topics, regions, and concepts. This year we show 10 short films presented and awarded at major festivals whose characters, stories and, ultimately the work itself in its entirety, raise their voices against the system: the patriarchy and its derivatives like abuse, sexism, binary gender classification, dysfunctional families. Panorama: Rebels offers stories from: Belgium, Cuba (in co-production with Puerto Rico), Egypt (in co-production with France, Qatar, Belgium), France, Greece, Norway, Spain, Thailand, UK, USA.

This year Visionär pays homage to Pedro Almodóvar by showing his debut film Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Average Girls (Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón): Framed in the context of “La Movida Madrileña”, this very provocative and low budget film combines scenes of sadomasochism, lesbian romances and alternative culture. Awards aside (He has won two Oscars, five Baftas, two Emmys, six European Film Awards, two Golden Globes, nine Goyas and four prizes at Cannes), Pedro Almodóvar has proven to be one of the most important directors, screenwriters, producers and intellectuals of postmodernity. He has become a global icon for his unique cinematic language, creating a pastiche of different genres where melodrama, American comedy, French noir, thriller, neo-realism and even horror intermingle.

As a multidisciplinary event, Visionär hosts a film concert under the name of KINO SONICO: this is a female project where a well-known female electronic musician develops a new score for a silent film made by a woman pioneering in cinema. Akkamiau develops and plays live a new soundtrack for the film La Tierra de los Toros (The Land of the Bulls, 1924) by Musidora. Musidora is best known for her roles as a silent film actress, particularly for her portrayal of the mythical figure in black tights Irma Vep in Louis Feuillade’s soap opera Les Vampires. Musidora was also active as a director and producer. Many of her films are considered lost, but three important works have survived: For Don Carlos – Sun and Shadow – Land of the Bulls. The latter was restored by the CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée.

Visionär believes and respects gender equality and gender inclusivity in its selection. In an industry that doesn’t always make it so easy for women and non-binary people, in a world in which it’s still necessary to impose the “pro film quote” in order to assure their presence, Visionär is very proud to contribute support to them. We’ll have 8 female directors and 3 male directors in the Feature Films Competition,  6 male filmmakers, 11 female and 2 non binary filmmakers in the Berlin Short Encounters, 6 female filmmakers and 5 male filmmakers in the non-competitive section Panorama: Rebels.

On duty call to judge our nine feature films and assign the Jury Award are:  Nesligül Satir (Sales Manager at ArtHood Entertainment, Turkey), Bartholomew Sammut (Festival Programmer at the Berlinale – Panorama, Australia) and Damián Sainz (Film Director, Cuba). Also, the audience is called to serve as a judge for both the full-length and short film selections.