Right-wing turn in Berlin leads to political debate – The Hollywood Reporter

Berlinale Palace

Courtesy of Eric Weiss/Berlinale

A week ago, the Berlin Film Festival was preparing for the worst.

Coupled with potential pro-Palestinian protests of the kind that took place at Sundance last month, it looked as if a much larger demonstration, by the German film industry and local activists, might shut down the red carpet altogether. There has been growing anger over the Berlinale’s decision to invite members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to tonight’s opening ceremony. More than 200 film professionals, mostly from within the German industry, issued an open letter in which they described the decision as “inconsistent” with the festival’s official commitment to being a place of “compassion, awareness and understanding.”

The Berlinale, which is state-funded, regularly invites 100 members of the Berlin state parliament to attend the opening night. Parliament selects the guests and makes sure to include members from all elected parties. Since 2017, this has included the Alternative for Germany party.

“They are always invited, and they stand alone in a small circle, with no one talking to them.”
said a state parliament representative, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to speak on political matters.

But the AfD’s increasing extremism — a recent investigation revealed the AfD plans to carry out mass deportations of non-ethnic Germans if they come to power — and its growing support in opinion polls has led many in the country to question whether the party poses a fundamental threat. For the Germans. democracy. For weeks, hundreds of thousands of Germans have taken part in anti-AfD demonstrations, and there are calls to ban the party.

Last Thursday, the Berlin festival abruptly backed down and disinvited the five AfD members on its guest list. Berlinale directors Mariette Riesenbeek and Carlo Chatrian described the move as “an unequivocal stance in favor of open democracy.”

“With thousands of people taking to the streets every weekend to protest the AfD, I think the Berlinale has just read the room,” says Deborah Cole, a Berlin-based American journalist with Agence France-Presse. “It would have been a terrible look on opening night with the first black jury president (Lupita Nyong’o) with stars from all over the world, drawing attention and scandal to these AfD politicians in the audience. Who would have liked the attention, of course.”

Uninvited right-wingers are already extracting political capital from the festival’s turn. AfD politician Gunnar Lindemann took to X to compare the cancellation of the call to the exclusion of Jews from society under the Nazis.

“The comparison was very intense in terms of the brand, but it was also so striking that you think protocol is one thing, but these people have a job[at the Berlinale],” Cole says.

It wasn’t always like this. In 2019, Dieter Kosslick, then director of Berlin, openly invited AfD members to the festival, urging them to watch a documentary about the reality of life in the Warsaw ghetto.

“And he got a big applause for that,” Cole notes. But German policy changed. this
A strangely enlightening idea, that it is possible to reach these people through cinema, at a time when one in five German voters say they are willing to vote for the AfD, when you have three main elections coming up in eastern Germany, which is Important. The stronghold of the Alternative for Germany party, it seems to many like a luxury that the Berlinale can no longer afford.”

Not everyone agrees. German Culture Minister Claudia Roth supported the festival’s decision. Its spokesman said the recent revelations made it perfectly clear “how the AfD thinks about disenfranchising and deporting a large portion of citizens in this country,” making it “understandable that filmmakers from Germany, Europe and the world are committed to ensuring the expulsion of racists and extremists.” “Enemies of democracy should have no place in the Berlinale.”

But Berlin Mayor’s spokeswoman Kay Wegener said that, while she “respects the decisions of the Berlinale,” they will continue to “work according to the principle of equal treatment” and invite AfD members to attend their events, at the Berlinale or elsewhere.

The same applies to the official reception organized by the state of NRW, a must-attend event for German industry, which was held in Berlin on 18 February. , noting that the state government, like the federal government in Germany, believes that “all elected representatives” should be “treated equally.”

With the AfD shifting its position, the Berlinale may have avoided a public relations disaster on opening night. But the controversy surrounding her decision has only just begun.