Organizers of Berlin Critics’ Week 2022 announce film selection

The film selection for Berlin Critics’ Week 2022 has been announced. The event is set to take place from 9 to 17 February with the film programme kicking off on 10 February at the movie house Hackesche Höfe Kino. 

The event presents a selection of international films, with the aim to facilitate the discussion of stimulating works. International critics and filmmakers come together to discuss “politics and aesthetics, preferences and rejection, new forms of distribution and perception”, as per the Berlin Critics’ Week website.

The members of the selection committee this year include collective members Istvan Gyöngyösi and Dennis Vetter; and the Critics’ Week co-founder Dunja Bialas; Argentinian writer, programmer and filmmaker Lucía Salas; and film critic and programmer Victor Guimarães. 

The programme is divided into various sections that aim to examine particular facets and debates in cinema. The section Footage Fetish features the new film by Júlio Bressane, Capitu and the Chapter, along with André Antônio’s short Venus in Nykes.

Libertine features a programme of three films that put notions of freedom to the test. Azul Aizenberg’s The Stonebreakers, Friday Night Stand by Jan Soldat and Inu-Oh by Masaaki Yuasa. This will be followed by a debate on the liberties and libertinage of cinema, and a speculation on unleashed bodies, workers revolts, rampant montage, sexual self-determination and rock ‘n’ roll. 

The programme Tripping will feature Ekaterina Selenkina’s Detours and Nosferasta: First Bite by co-directors Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer. A debate will follow on the unpredictability of cinema, on cinematic pitfalls and curatorial one-way streets. Other sections include one titled Losing Transmission and a collaboration with directors Želimir Žilnik and Ute Adamczewski for a jointly curated programme.

The closing programme, titled Mythunderstanding, will showcase Khavn de la Cruz’s new film-poem Love Is a Dog from Hell, followed by Sycorax, the first joint directorial effort from Lois Patiño and Matías Piñeiro. 

For three years, the event has featured a debate format that focuses on the perspectives of film critics. This year, the Critics’ Debate, will feature a response to Pascale Bodet’s absurdist comedy Edouard and Charles as well as Norbert Pfaffenbichler’s experimental horror film 2551.01.