‘Coma’: Bertrand Bonello’s Latest Is An Unforgiving, Nightmarish Blast [Berlin Film Festival]

Naman Ramachandran The Berlin Film Festival has called for peace over the situation in Ukraine, which is currently in a state of military conflict after Russian forces struck on Thursday morning.“We — festival workers, artists, filmmakers — think fondly of our friends in Ukraine and we are by their side in a call for peace,” the festival said in a statement issued on Thursday. “One week ago, the Berlin International Film Festival was celebrating a complicated yet successful edition.

The Berlin International Film Festival confirmed today it has recorded 128 positive Covid cases from 10,938 tests taken at testing stations around fest hub Potsdamer Platz.

Guy Lodge Film CriticThe Berlin Film Festival’s awards ceremony is under way, with M. Night Shyamalan’s jury soon to announce their selections from the festival’s official competition.

Winners are being announced for the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival. Follow the ceremony live via the below video feed from 7PM CET / 10AM PST, with the red carpet now underway.

Sat in front of a computer, musician Nick Cave reads a few questions aloud. These are deeply existential musings sent in by people he has never met.

Berlin Film Festival has staged its first in-person edition since 2020, soldiering on amid a wave of the COVID omicron variant in Germany and a last-minute virtual pivot for the European Film Market. Here are our main takeaways below:Film Industry Pining For In-Person Meetings Despite the EFM being online, a clutch of buyers and sellers made the trek to Berlin where they held a mix of online and physical meetings in the Marriott and a very bare Gropius Bau.

The streets outside her window are dripping with hope, and yet Élisabeth (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is lost. It is Paris, 1981, a new president has been elected, and Élisabeth’s husband has left, claiming the thrillingness of motion by moving in with a new girlfriend while his ex is left with the stagnance of remaining, the apartment where they’ve raised their children, Judith (Megan Northam) and Matthias (Quito Rayon-Richter), at once comfortingly familiar and dreadfully new.

Few directors are better equipped to make an interesting and entertaining film in the middle of a pandemic than Quentin Dupieux. Seemingly unperturbed by this “new normal,” the French filmmaker continues on his recent string of cost-effective but impactful films, each revolving around a simple but conceptually bold ‘what if’ scenario, with “Incredible But True,” premiering in the Special Gala section of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

Michael Nordine authorFew things will have you longing for an end to the pandemic like “Coma,” an experimental lockdown project from French provocateur Bertrand Bonello. If you’re the type to dread being alone with your thoughts, try being locked in a room with Bonello’s: The “Nocturama” director’s ruminations on free will, dreams and the deeper meaning of Michael Jackson’s music will have you longing to fall into a deep sleep, just so you don’t have to listen to it anymore.

EXCLUSIVE: The Berlin Film Festival, which got underway on Thursday evening, has recorded more than 60 positive Covid results from its testing procedures, organizers have confirmed to us.

An imaginative insight into an 18-year-old’s mind, Bertrand Bonello’s Berlin Film Festival Encounters strand entry Coma comes with a preface: it’s dedicated to his teenage daughter. It aims to both reflect the concerns of her generation and to reassure her that some kind of rebirth will come after the pressures of lockdown during the Covid pandemic. Coma stars just two actors in-camera, with voice work from Gaspard Ulliel, who died tragically earlier this year. Bonello’s introductory comments about loss feel particularly poignant after the death of his Saint Laurent star. 

Just as the Tiktok-ers and Instagrammites of the world had completed the mainstreaming of ASMR, master of the tactile Peter Strickland has returned to restore the unsettling, alien quality to sensation. In “Flux Gourmet,” his latest and most bizarre film — a hotly contested title he earns with this feverish stew of murdered turtles, torrid orgies, and heartrending fart-tending — texture is everything.

EXCLUSIVE: Organizers of the Berlin Film Festival have told us that the world premiere screening of opening film Peter Von Kant was disrupted last night due to “a server problem”.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran editor Natalia Lopez Gallardo’s feature directing debut Robe Of Gems screens in competition today at the Berlin Film Festival, check out the first trailer above.

Naman Ramachandran Protagonist Pictures has closed multiple deals for several key territories on Sundance selection and Berlin Film Festival competition title “Call Jane.”Territories sold include DCM for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Umbrella Entertainment for Australia and New Zealand, Mis.label for Scandinavia, Eagle for Italy, Shaw for Singapore and Empire for South Africa.Directed by Phyllis Nagy, the Oscar nominated writer of “Carol,” the film stars Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Mara and Chris Messina. The film follows Joy (Banks), a traditional 1960s housewife who unexpectedly falls pregnant and finds the Janes, an underground abortion movement led by Virginia (Weaver).

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentSwitzerland, thanks to its prolific co-production activity, has a hand in a record-breaking 11 titles in the Berlinale’s official selection, including two films competing for the Golden Bear, and two more in Berlin’s cutting-edge Encounters section, as well as a Swiss talent selected for the fest’s Shooting Stars event, Souheila Yacoub.Ursula Meier’s “The Line” (competition) — Following “Home” and “Sister,” Meier continues to pursue “this idea of family that is as much necessary, as it is toxic,” says the film’s producer Pauline Gygax. After a violent argument with her mother, Margaret, 35 (Stephanie Blanchoud), who has a long history of inflicting and suffering from violence, is subjected to a restraining order.

Ed Meza @edmezavarThe 72nd Berlin Film Festival got off to a promising if somewhat subdued start Feb. 10 amid strict restrictions due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, which put a major damper on this year’s festivities and kept crowds to a minimum.While only some 800 guests attended the opening night ceremony at the Berlinale Palast — less than half of the normal capacity of the festival’s grand main venue — the event was nevertheless a hopeful sign for the local film industry and for cinema in general.The festival was uncompromising in its mask policy for the red carpet, rendering most high-profile guests unrecognizable — although many whipped them off for the phalanx of photographers.

The 72nd Berlin International Film Festival is officially up and running as an in-person event, pressing on determinedly despite the challenges presented by the Covid wave Germany is experiencing.

The 72nd Berlin Film Festival kicks off in physical form today with M. Night Shyamalan leading the main competition jury. Also notable among panelists is Oscar nominee Ryusuke Hamaguchi whose Drive My Car this week became the first Japanese movie ever nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award. Hamaguchi was actually on a plane heading to Berlin when the nominations were announced, and only learned of the results upon landing.