Mariette Rissenbeek Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

The first-ever edition of AfroBerlin put Africa in the spotlight at the Berlin Film Festival and in one key session asked how festivals, streamers, and the wider industry can — and should — support films and filmmakers from the continent.

Berlin Film Festival 2025 Dates 

EXCLUSIVE: Martin Scorsese is returning to the Berlin Film Festival tomorrow for the first time in a decade. The cinema legend, currently on the awards circuit with latest epic Killers Of The Flower Moon, will be feted with the Berlinale‘s highest honor, its lifetime achievement Golden Bear.

A youthful crowd of industry professionals filed into a bustling room at the Gropius Bau Saturday afternoon for the inaugural AfroBerlin symposium here at the Berlin Film Festival. 

EXCLUSIVE: L.A. filmmaker Jacqueline Elyse Rosenthal has won the first edition of Stage 32 and Catalyst Studios’ Empowering Women Script Competition for her social impact film Backlog.

Festival season 2024 is well underway, Insiders, as our team decamps to Berlin. That and plenty more news to report from around the world to follow. Jesse Whittock with you. Sign up for the Insider newsletter here.

Berlinale. They followed a red carpet that mixed demonstrations and high style over a more than two-hour stretch. Festival co-chief Mariëtte Rissenbeek felt it necessary to address head on the festival’s recent controversy over invitations to five far-right (AfD) members of the German parliament.

The Berlin Film Festival officially kicked off this evening with an eventful opening ceremony at the Berlinale Palast theater in the German capital. 

EXCLUSIVE: The Berlin Film Festival gets underway tomorrow but organizers and staff will be doing so bruised after an uncomfortable build-up to the event.

Ellise Shafer A group of Berlinale workers have published an open letter to the festival, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and asking that leadership take a “stronger institutional stance” on what the statement calls “the current assault on Palestinian life.” The letter, which was published on Instagram Monday night with a link to a Google Form for others to sign, was in response to the Berlinale’s Jan. 19 statement on the Israel-Hamas war.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent For decades, the Berlin Film Festival has been forging its own iconoclastic path, known for screening the best of world cinema and edgy underground discoveries as well as its cold February temperatures, while the starrier and warmer Cannes and Venice fests have been in fierce competition to grab the limelight (aka Oscar movies). But the Berlinale — a public institution created at the beginning of the Cold War in 1951 — could be changing course next year with the appointment of Tricia Tuttle, a progressive American film journalist and curator who led the BFI London Film Festival during a fast-growing five-year chapter, and has been indirectly tasked by Germany’s culture minister Claudia Roth to turn the Berlinale into a proper rival to Cannes and Venice, while maintaining its political edge and flare for arthouse cinema.

Good afternoon, it’s been a huge week in international TV and Max Goldbart is here to guide you through. Read on.

Berlinale Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian announced his final Competition and Encounters line-ups on Monday ahead of bowing out of the festival alongside Managing Director Mariette Rissenbeek at the end of the upcoming 74th edition in February.

The Berlinale put out a statement expressing its sympathy for the “victims of the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East” and making it clear that its 74th edition would be a place for filmmakers on all sides of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, at its press conference on Monday.

Berlin Film Festival is unveiling its full competition lineup. Berlin’s previously announced opener is Ireland-set drama “Small Things Like These” starring “Oppenheimer’s” Cillian Murphy and directed by Tim Mielants (“Peaky Blinders”).

EXCLUSIVE: Industry training platform Stage 32 has revealed the 11 finalists selected for its inaugural Empowering Women Script Competition, running in collaboration with production company Catalyst Studios.

Martin Scorsese, whose latest film “Killers of the Flower Moon” is one of the most buzzed about movies of this awards season, will receive the Honorary Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 20. The festival’s directors, Carlo Chatrian and Mariëtte Rissenbeek said Scorsese in “an unmatched role model” for “anyone who considers cinema as the art of shaping a story in such a way that is both completely personal and universal.

Martin Scorsese will be feted with an honorary Golden Bear at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, running from February 15 to 25, 2024.

Dennis Ruh, whose departure as head of the Berlinale‘s European Film Market after the 2024 edition was announced today, has expressed surprise that his contract has not been renewed and also questioned the festival’s new hiring protocols.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Dennis Ruh, the head of the European Film Market, has issued a statement saying that he will step down from his position after the 2024 edition of the Berlin Film Festival. Ruh unveiled the news of his upcoming departure in a letter sent to journalists shortly after Tricia Tuttle, the former head of the BFI London Film Festival, was announced as the new director of the Berlinale starting in 2025.

Berlin Film Festival has appointed Tricia Tuttle, the former director of the BFI London Film Festival, to become the new director of the international film event starting in 2024. Tuttle will succeed Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek who have co-led the Berlinale as artistic and executive directors since 2020 and will step down after this year’s edition when their respective mandates end. The Berlin Film Festival is the world’s second biggest international film festival after Cannes.

Tricia Tuttle has been named director of the Berlin Film Festival. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Lupita Nyong’o, the Oscar-winning Kenyan-Mexican actor and filmmaker, will preside over the international jury of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival. She will be the second consecutive female jury president at the Berlinale, following fellow actor Kristen Stewart.

Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o will head the competition jury at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival.

Ed Meza @edmezavar The German film industry is eagerly awaiting the appointment of the Berlin Film Festival’s new director, expected to be announced tomorrow, and as the guessing game surrounding the choice shifts into high gear, one thing looks increasingly clear: the new head will face considerable financial and political challenges at the Berlinale. Speculation in the local industry has been rife with likely candidates to succeed Carlo Chatrian and Mariëtte Rissenbeek, who have co-led the Berlinale as artistic and executive directors since 2020 and will step down after this year’s edition when their respective mandates end.

European Film Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol has denied he is a candidate to become the next director of the Berlin Film Festival.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The Berlin Film Festival has created a new scouting role to curate a rising generation of German filmmakers. The next edition, which is set to take place from Feb. 15-25, will see its section dedicated to newcomer German films merged into the main program.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The Berlin Film Festival will be launching a new section, called Newcomer German Films, during its next edition taking place from Feb. 15-25. The section will highlight emerging German filmmakers, and will be part of the main program alongside the Competition, Encounters, Panorama, Generation and Forum sections.

A growing list of 300 film professionals, including Martin Scorsese, Olivier Assayas, Joanna Hogg, and Radu Jude, have signed an open letter calling for the contract of outgoing Berlinale Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian to be reinstated and extended beyond 2024. 

Carlo Chatrian whose mandate as artistic director of the Berlinale will come to an end next year. As we reported last week, Chatrian had been expected to stay on beyond 2024, and was surprised to learn that the German body which oversees the festival, Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin (KBB), announced that it would no extend his contract. The org had previously said it would abandon the model of having an executive director and an artistic director and return instead to having a single director, following the next edition.

Berlinale co-head Carlo Chatrian has decided to step down as artistic director after the 2024 edition of the festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Stage 32, the entertainment industry social network and educational platform, and Catalyst Studios, a U.S. production company supporting female-fronted projects, are partnering to launch a screenwriting contest for feature films with a focus on social impact, the companies announced Friday at the Venice Film Festival.

German Culture Minister Claudia Roth has announced she wants the Berlinale to be placed back under the control of a single director.

EXCLUSIVE: Outgoing Berlinale co-director Mariette Rissenbeek shared a surprising statement during an industry keynote this week at Locarno. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “What’s the Deal With Independent Cinema?” was the theme of the Locarno Film Festival’s StepIn think tank where a select group of European and international industry players exchanged views and took part in working sessions to discuss the state of the indie film industry. The unique event, now at it 11th edition, kicked off Thursday with an “out-of-the-box” introduction by feisty U.S.