A Serious Game

Pernilla August : 2016
Den allvarsamma leken

Stockholm at the beginning of the twentieth century. Lydia, the daughter of a landscape painter, and Arvid, a young journalist at the beginning of his career, fall in love at first sight. But the time is not ripe for their happiness: after the sudden death of her father, Lydia finds herself without an inheritance. Believing that he has nothing to offer her, penniless Arvid, who comes from a poor background, shies away from the idea of marriage. They part. When they meet again ten years later – both are now married and have children – they embark upon a passionate affair with unforeseeable consequences. A romance about two people who transcend the morals of their time and discover their own, unexpected ways of fulfilling their emotions. Pernilla August's adaptation of Hjalmar Söderberg's classic 1912 novel premiered in the Berlinale Special section at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.

A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery

Lav Diaz : 2016
Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis

Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro is considered to be one of the most influential proponents in the struggle against Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines during the late nineteenth century. Today, he is still celebrated as the father of the Philippine Revolution. Bonifacio's widow is searching for her husband's missing dead body; as she and her followers stumble deeper into the jungle, they become entangled in the dense thicket of their own guilt and responsibility. The Spanish governor tries to play off the various rebel factions and their utopian visions against each other. At the same time, a badly wounded companion of Bonifacio reflects upon the victims a revolution inevitably creates. The film was winner of the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.

Alone in Berlin

Vincent Perez : 2016
Jeder stirbt für sich allein

Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime's victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel's son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the 'Führer' and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat. A quietly persuasive eulogy to human courage and dignity in an atmosphere of surveillance and intimidation. Vincent Perez's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.

Fire at Sea

Gianfranco Rosi : 2016
Fuocoammare

Samuele is twelve and lives on an island in the Mediterranean, far away from the mainland. Like all boys of his age he does not always enjoy going to school. He would much rather climb the rocks by the shore, play with his slingshot or mooch about the port. But his home is not like other islands. For years, it has been the destination of men, women and children trying to make the crossing from Africa in boats that are far too small and decrepit. The island is Lampedusa which has become a metaphor for the flight of refugees to Europe, the hopes, hardship and fate of hundreds of thousands of emigrants. These people long for peace, freedom and happiness and yet so often only their dead bodies are pulled out of the water. Thus, every day the inhabitants of Lampedusa are bearing witness to the greatest humanitarian tragedy of our times. Gianfranco Rosi's feature was winner of the Golden Bear when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.