2007 BERLIN & BEYOND—Festival Overview

A week later, however, Berlin & Beyond wound down with veteran director Doris Dörrie's latest feature The Fisherman and His Wife, her comedic tribute to the Grimms fairy tale, co-presented by the San Francisco Film Society.

Berlin & Beyond proudly recognized the achievements of debuting filmmakers with the MK Award for Best First Feature. The award carried a $5,000 cash prize and was given to a filmmaker whose debut narrative feature exhibited a unique artistic sensibility or vision and deserved to be seen by a wide audience. This year's recipient was Birgit Möller's Valerie, and director Möller was on hand to receive the honors at this U.S. premiere. The other contenders in competition were Mirko Borscht's Combat Sixteen, Stina Werenfels' Going Private, Matthias Luthardt's Pingpong and Florian Gaag's Wholetrain, all screened at this year's festival, and each introduced by their promising directors. Combat Sixteen was a U.S. premiere; Going Private and Wholetrain were West Coast premieres, and Pingpong has been traveling the festival circuit.

Along with being a U.S. premiere, Combat Sixteen was featured as part of the Festival's panel discussion on celluloid brutality. "Film and Violence", held at the Goethe-Institut and co-presented by The Film Arts Foundation, examined Combat Sixteen, Detlev Buck's Tough Enough, Andres Veiel's The Kick and Matthias Glasner's The Free Will as representative of films where violence—whether sensational and graphic or subtle and implied—is used as a narrative tool to communicate directorial messages. German filmmakers Mirko Borscht and Andres Veiel joined Bay Area filmmakers and producers Nancy Brown and Kevin Weston and moderator David Liu to tackle this timely topic.

Movies about music and movies with music were a strong highlight at the festival this year. Industrial music, an early garage band, and an obscure hiphop break dancing movement were the focus of a trio of documentaries: the U.S. premiere of Blixa Bargeld's Einstürzende Neubauten, the West Coast premiere of Dietmar Post and Lucia Palacios' Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback, and the U.S. premiere of Nico Raschick's Here We Come, winner of the Kinofest Lünen Audience Award 2006. Directors Bargeld, Post, and Raschick attended their respective screenings. In honor of Mozart's 250th birthday, the Wiener Mozartjahr 2006 in Vienna commissioned 28 Austrian directors to create a 60-second movie about Mozart and the result—Mozart Minute—documents the project as part of the festival's Short Film Program I. Florian Gaag's fast-paced Wholetrain about the European subway graffiti writer subculture likewise boasted an amazing original soundtrack featuring new and exclusive performances by hip hop legend KRS One, as well as Freddie Foxxx, O.C. Afu-Ra, and El Da Sensei. Gaag attended. To round out the musical focus, Berlin & Beyond—in conjunction with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival—co-presented Manfred Noa's 1922 Nathan Der Weise (Nathan the Wise) with Dennis James on the Mighty Wurlitzer. Restored by Filmmuseum München, Nathan the Wise was introduced by the museum's director Stefan Drößler, who made himself available for a special Q&A in the mezzanine of the Castro Theatre. The film's German intertitles were read in English.

Three of the Festival's films were family-friendly, including Wolfgang Murnberger's charming coming-of-age tale Lapislazuli, co-presented by the Consulate General of Austria, Los Angeles. Continuing a festival tradition, Bay Area high school students were admitted free to the film's Friday, January 12, 1:00 screening at the Castro.

Overview by Michael Guillén.