Florian Weghorn – Berlinale Talents #Berlinale

Florian Weghorn – Programme Manager – Berlinale Talents

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti talks to Florian Weghorn, programme manager of the 13th edition of Berlinale Talents, which is an extensive summit programme of master classes and panel discussions but also a networking platform for its 300 emerging talents participating. To cite Berlinale Artistic Director Dieter Kosslick, Weghorn’s presence at the Berlinale Talents ( he was former head of the Berlinale section Generation) will guarantee an even closer connection between the programming sections and the networking platform.

The 13th edition of Berlinale Talents will take place from the 7th to the 12th of February at the HAU Hebbel am Ufer theatres in Berlin and will see the participation of big names of the cinema world who will host master classes and panels to share with the audience and the talents their experience.

This year’s main theme is A SPACE DISCOVERY. On this topic, top experts will structure their workshops and panels. To name but a few: The panel “Road, Movie: Films in Motion” brings German director Sebastian Schipper from the Competition programme (Victoria) together with Walter Salles (On the Road). Both will keep track of their protagonists’ cinematic journeys through space and time. Oscar®, Golden Globe and Grammy-winning Film Composer Howard Shore will host two panels with the audience and privileged emerging film composers to elaborate how a film’s score and sound create spaces in which stories unfold. Talking about “Space discovery”, spaces for exhibiting films and bustling hubs of alternative culture will be the main points discussed during the panel “Crossroads to Culture – Cinema(s) in the Arab World”. Berlinale Talents is strictly connected to the EFM – European Film Market with whom it shares initiatives, spaces, resources and ideas. This year indeed, as the EFM will hold two panels on TV Drama Series, Berlinale Talents opened its doors to emerging talents with a TV series background. In addition to that, The European Film Market 2015 welcomes Berlinale Talents once again to the initiative Berlinale Talents Market Hub in partnership with Canon. This platform, at its buzzing location in the gallery of the Martin-Gropius-Bau, serves as a contact and meeting point, offering new perspectives to both EFM participants and upcoming talents. On top of that, much like last year, there is the Talent Project Market which is a co-operation between the Berlinale Co-Production Market and Berlinale Talents. It offers ca. 10 selected upcoming producers and directors ( this year 11) an opportunity to present their projects to Berlinale Co-Production Market participants in one-on-one meetings and to meet experts to learn more about international co-production.

Berlinale Talents is an initiative of the Berlin International Film Festival, a business division of the Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin GmbH, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, in cooperation with Creative Europe MEDIA, a programme of the European Union, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and Canon. It was initiated in 2003. In addition to the extensive summit programme of master classes and panel discussions with top-notch experts, Berlinale Talents offers a range of Project Labs in which you can further develop and present your own project. Berlinale Talents also provides Studio programmes and workshops for specific groups of film professionals. As an initiative of the Berlin International Film Festival, the entire event is closely linked with the programmes of the festival sections and the European Film Market. While the roots of Berlinale Talents are firmly planted in Berlin new shoots of the initiative have been sprouting internationally. These Talents International editions, Talents Beirut in Lebanon, Talents Buenos Aires in Argentina, Talents Guadalajara in Mexico, Talents Durban in South Africa, Talents Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Talents Tokyo in Japan have the familiar structure and purpose of their German counterpart; all the while retaining a regional perspective and finding support and the necessary amenities in a locally based international film festival. Talents initiatives are supported by local partners as well as by the Goethe-Institut