Florian Weghorn – Berlinale Talents #Berlinale2018

PODCAST| Chiara Nicoletti interviews Florian Weghorn, programme manager of Berlinale Talents 2018.

If last year’s theme was “Courage Against All Odds”, Berlinale Talents celebrates its sweet 16 years of life by deciding to focus on the mysteries of cinema and developing the new theme: Secrets. Florian Weghorn, programme manager of the Talents is once again on FRED to describe how this theme has been developed and shaped into the various talents’projects, activities and panels. “Sharing and participation are true secrets for success”, Weghorn remarks while proudly quoting a new talents’ record which received 3,191 applications from 133 countries this year. 250 filmmakers from 81 countries have finally been chosen, 128 women and 122 men. As in the previous years, the Berlinale Talents is proud to announce that the only two debut films in Competition, Touch Me Not and Las herederas are both by alumni directors, Adina Pintilie and Marcelo Martinessi besides David Zellner who co-directed with his brother Nathan and is in competition with Damsel. Even if it’s by chance that there’s a majority of women among the Talents selected, the Berlinale Talents doesn’t fail to keep on track with the recent happenings and discussions in the cinema world and not only, about equal treatment and gender equality and takes this opportunity to organize debates on how to achieve a better gender and power balance. As a tradition, many important guests are going to hold workshops and panels. To mention only a few: Gus Van Sant (Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot), Christian Petzold and Barbara Auer (Transit), Jury President Tom Tykwer, director of the fortunate TV series Babylon Berlin, Lav Diaz, the makers of the new German Netflix series Dark and composer and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto. The new key visual for Berlinale Talents 2018 lends a visual dimension to the theme of “Secrets”: by not revealing everything, Talents, guests and the Berlin public are invited to complete the various statements with their own interpretations.

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 and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. 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.

To know more about Berlinale Talents, click here.