Full program for the Berlin Critics’ Week 2024
The complete film programme and a large cast of guests for Berlin Critics’ Week 2024 are now online, with the final list of attendees as well as a detailed schedule for the opening conference on February 14 to be announced in the coming days. This year, our film screenings and debates will take place from February 15–22.
Tickets are now on sale for all film and debate programmes of the Berlin Critics’ Week. Find our ticket presales on the website of the Hackesche Höfe Kino.
Tickets for the opening conference are available on the website of the Akademie der Künste. Find details on our film programmes on our website.
Access to the events is free of charge for reporting press, anyone with Berlinale accreditation, and members of the German Film Critics Association (VdFk). The number of free tickets is, however, limited. We therefore ask you to register in advance: Members of the press and VdFk members should contact Elisabeth Mohr (presse@wochederkritik.de) regarding our guest list, while people with Berlinale accreditation should contact Elena Friedrich (akkreditierung@wochederkritik.de). A limited number of remaining tickets will be allocated at the box office according to availability. Free tickets cannot be booked online via Hackesche Höfe Kino or Akademie der Künste. Please understand that we are currently unable to offer a separate accreditation option for film professionals.
Partners of Berlin Critics’ Week 2024
For the tenth edition of Berlin Critics’ Week, the German Film Critics Association receives the support of several partners and sponsors. Funding was made possible by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds, the Stiftung Kulturwerk of the VG Bild-Kunst and the Rudolf Augstein Foundation. In 2024, event partners also include the Embassy of the United States in Berlin, the Embassy of Portugal in Berlin, the Goethe-Institut in Peking and the Goethe-Institut Max Mueller/Bhavan, the Berlin University of the Arts, the film magazine Panorama-cinéma and the streaming platform Le Panoptique, and the Hotel Catalonia Berlin-Mitte.
We are grateful for the generous support and dedicated collaboration to the Film and Media Arts Section of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin as well as to Hackesche Höfe Kino, which has made the Berlin Critics’ Week possible ever since the first edition. We also thank the travel agency overtherainbow and Plakat Kultur.
The media partners of Berlin Critics’ Week 2024 are Der Freitag, Texte zur Kunst, and Indiekino.
All dates at a glance:
WED Feb 14
7 pm
Filmmaking Against All Odds? – Cinema, Criticism, Climate Crisis
Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin
Discussion with Ada Solomon, Fee Buck, Cassandre Warnauts, Sara Schurmann
Keynotes from T. J. Demos and Sara Schurmann
In the face of man-made climate change, today’s societies urgently need to transform themselves – and the world of film and festivals is no exception. To open Berlin Critics’ Week 2024, we will be debating what sort of influence filmmakers, critics, and activists can (or should) have on the requisite transformation process. How can artistic freedom be made compatible with the imperatives of sustainability? How industrial should the cinema of the future be? What routines and automatisms are proving debilitating to the film sector? And which political interventions seem necessary or meaningful?
On February 14, we will address these topics in a panel discussion involving film producers Ada Solomon, Fee Buck, and Cassandre Warnauts, accompanied by talks by the journalist Sara Schurmann and by the art historian and cultural critic T. J. Demos. On February 16, we will present a film programme curated by T. J. Demos on the theme of artistic responses to ecological issues.
THU Feb 15
8 pm
PHANTOM THREAD
On films that wrap us around their fingers and people who are entangled with cinema: Two playful experimental films, one feature and one short, here give rise to a discussion about idiosyncratic styles, image textures, and the art of captivating the audience.
Among the guests: Mathilde ter Heijne, Srikanth Srinivasan, Graham Swon
MOTHER, WHO WILL WEAVE NOW?
Dir: Amit Dutta, IND 2022, 25 min. – German premiere
AN EVENING SONG (FOR THREE VOICES)
Dir: Graham Swon, USA 2023, 86 min. – German premiere
FRI Feb 16
8 pm
ELEMENTAL BODIES: ECOLOGIES, MEDIA, EXTRACTION
Guest programme curated by T. J. Demos
How do artists react to extractive racial capitalism, to techno-utopianism and AI-doomerism, to oppositional eco-social movements? Can they reimagine life and embodiment, aesthetically and politically?
Guests: Daniel Felstead, Kevin B. Lee, Angela Melitopoulos
THE ECOLOGY OF SCIENCE FICTION
Dir: Renee Hendrix, Tobias Dekker, Marlene Fischer, SUI 2023, 11 min. – German premiere
LITERALLY NO PLACE
Dir: Daniel Felstead, Jenn Leung, USA 2023, 18 min.
SERPENT RAIN
Dir: Arjuna Neuman, Denise Ferreira da Silva, NOR 2016, 30 min.
MESSAGE OF THE FOREST
Dir: The Otolith Group, GBR 2019, 4 min.
CROSSINGS
Dir: Angela Melitopoulos, GER 2017, 20 min. (excerpt)
SAT Feb 17
8 pm
IMITATION OF LIFE
A debate about films that feel like real life, only better: Between myth, experiment, and everyday life, we trace images that seem watertight and explore the question of whether films can be smarter than their makers.
Among the guests: Shambhavi Kaul, Éléonore Saintagnan
SLOW SHIFT
Dir: Shambhavi Kaul, IND/USA 2023, 9 min. – European premiere
CAMPING DU LAC
Dir: Éléonore Saintagnan, BEL/FRA 2023, 69 min.
HORSE GIRL
Dir: Natalia del Mar Kašik, AUT 2023, 4 min. – World premiere
SUN Feb 18
8 pm
SOUND AND FURY
A debate about the charm of humour and anger within nonsense, satire, and the essay film form, inspired by two particularly talkative films that have a lot to say to you. For anyone who likes to feel like they've walked into the wrong movie.
Among the guests: Aaron Jackson, Chloé Galibert-Laîné, Josh Sharp
I WOULD LIKE TO RAGE
Dir: Chloé Galibert-Laîné, FRA 2023, 11 min. – German premiere
DICKS: THE MUSICAL
Dir: Larry Charles, USA 2023, 86 min. – German premiere
MON Feb 19
8 pm
HANGOVER
A debate on political violence and loss of reality, based on two poetic films that are both attacks on art, through art. Our guests pose questions about taboo and (self-)censorship in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Berlin.
Guests: Zhenming Guo, Nastia Korkia, Anna Narinskaya, Jinyan Zeng
DREAMS ABOUT PUTIN
Dir: Nastia Korkia, BEL/HUN/PRT 2023, 30 min. – German premiere
TEDIOUS DAYS AND NIGHTS
Dir: Zhenming Guo, CHN 2023, 110 min. – European premiere
TUE Feb 20
8 pm
CARNIVAL OF SOULS
We discuss the horror of capitalism, the surreality of politics, and masking in both playful and serious cases. We ask about the limits of the bearable and the unambiguity of certain signs, faces and images, especially in activist cinema.
Guests: Şirin Fulya Erensoy, Omer Fast, Massimo Perinelli, Riar Rizaldi
ABENDLAND
Dir: Omer Fast, GER 2024, 115 min. – World premiere
NOTES FROM GOG MAGOG
Dir: Riar Rizaldi, IDN 2023, 19 min. – German premiere
WED Feb 21
8 pm
CITY LIGHTS
What makes a film Argentinean? Two films from different eras visualise the past and present of the country’s social inequality – while also obscuring reality through stylisation and the evocation of punk, ghosts and carnival.
Guests: Francisco Bouzas, Davide Oberto, Susanne Sachsse
WARNES
Dir: Narcisa Hirsch, ARG 1991, 3 min.
HIDDEN CITY
Dir: Francisco Bouzas, ARG 2024, 95 min. – World premiere
THU Feb 22
8 pm
HARD, FAST AND BEAUTIFUL
Between genres and their clichés, between the museum, the nouvelle vague, and the digital revolution, a debate emerges about film characters who rebel against their conditions – sexism, colonialism, and the worst enemy of all: narrative cinema!
Among the guests: Gala Hernández López, Catarina Vasconcelos, Clara Winter
PISTOLERAS
Dir: Natalia del Mar Kašik, AUT 2023, 2 min. – German premiere
NOCTURNE FOR A FOREST
Dir: Catarina Vasconcelos, PRT 2023, 16 min. – German premiere
WIKIRIDERS
Dir: Clara Winter, Miiel Ferráez, Megan Marsh, MEX/GER 2024, 60 min. – World premiere
