It’s midway through the Berlinale and festival director Tricia Tuttle squeezes Deadline in for a quick catchup on the first half of the 76th edition ahead of hitting the red carpet for the world premiere of Kornél Mundruczó’s At The Sea.
Its star Amy Adams is not in Berlinale but her absence has practically gone unnoticed with the media’s attention rather on whether the festival has tried to put a lid on political discourse outside discussion of the politics in the films.
It’s a debate triggered by a remark from jury president Wim Wenders in the opening press conference that filmmakers “have to stay out of politics” in response to a question related to the Israel-Gaza conflict in which the journalist suggested the German government was “supporting genocide in Gaza”.
A backlash against Wenders as well other guests who deflected questions of a political nature not related to their films, prompted Tuttle to put out a statement on Saturday titled ‘On Speaking, Cinema and Politics’ in which she defended the right of artists to not “speak on every political issue raised to them unless they want to.”
Talking to Deadline on Monday, Tuttle suggests that Wenders’s reply was misrepresented and misinterpreted and that he was not trying to shutdown political discourse.
“I really don’t think that’s what he meant. I really don’t. He had just spoken about a different kind of politics in his answer… he also wasn’t answering the question that has been put beside his answer. He wasn’t answering the question about a genocide in Gaza. He was answering a question about whether there’s a double standard in us showing empathy for Ukrainians and Iranians and not speaking up in the way that people expect us to for the people of Gaza. That’s the question he was answering,” she said.
“My interpretation, because I’ve seen 50 years of his work, and I’ve heard him talk about politics in his work… he wanted to protect the festival, that’s what I felt. I think it wasn’t interpreted very generously. And I think sometimes we say things that need a lot more space to talk about, and we don’t have that kind of space, so it gets extracted, and it doesn’t mean what we meant it to mean.”
Tuttle says she is mystified by the fact that the festival is being presented as being less political, or even as having turned its back on politics.
“This is what I really don’t understand because the work is there, but for a couple of reasons, and this is the way I ran London too, we cannot have a political position on loads and loads of different issues because that becomes all we talk about,” she said.
“I know from being outside of the festival the last couple of years, it did feel always like the biggest story every year coming out of the festival was the cause that was at center of the festival, and it meant that no one was talking about the films.”
“It’s never about not programming the work. It’s never about not giving the filmmakers the space to talk about that work… I really don’t think they’re looking very much at the program when they talk about it, because the work is there. It’s really political, and no-one is telling artists what to say. It’s genuinely not happening.”
Tuttle’s first edition at the helm in 2025 followed in the wake of a tumultuous 2024 edition dominated by a polarizing debate over the Israel-Gaza conflict as well as a backlash over invites to far-right AfD politicians.
The former London Film Festival head was seen as having successfully calmed the waters, through mediation and discussion behind the scenes, as well as a carefully thought through set of guidelines on the festival’s position on freedom of expression, antisemitism and support for Palestinians.
Asked if the backlash a year on has left her in despair, she replies: “To say I’m in despair is wrong, but it is tiring. It is exhausting… I also feel one of the reasons that people maybe feel cautious about speaking out is because of exactly what happened in the last couple of days… when you talk about politics in a compressed way, there’s the potential to be misunderstood. There’s no space for complexity.”
Tuttle even goes as far to suggest that in some cases there is “bad will” in the way things are presented.
“To take a sound bite of someone’s answer, and then put a different question, or one that is slightly nuanced in a different way in front of that is misinformation. It’s also propaganda. To me that’s twisting what someone has said for your own political views,” she said.
Quizzed on whether she will stay the course for her five-year contract, Tuttle is at once ambivalent and determined.
“Let’s wait and see. I think so. I mean, I plan on it. I’ve started a project. I think that we have to make sure that the festival is sustainable, and the kinds of discourse that there have been over the last couple of days definitely make us weaker and not stronger,” she said.
“If we feel like every person who comes here is going to have a gotcha moment every time they open their mouths, then people aren’t going to want to come here unless they’re coming here to speak about politics. So that’s a real issue.”
In the meantime, the 76th edition continues until February 22, with upcoming highlights including the international premiere of Sundance breakout Josephine in Competition on Friday, as well as Jafar Panahi and Chloe Zhao In Conversations and a starry red carpet with Amanda Seyfried for the German premiere of The Testament of Ann Lee.
Tuttle suggests the fact the Bafta awards ceremony is taking place on the second weekend of the festival, rather than the first as in previous years, has helped secure the presence of the likes of Panahi, who then heads onto London with his nominated film It Was Just An Accident.
“We wanted the festival to be strong the whole way through. It’s really important. We did that last year as well. Radu Jude’s film was on the Wednesday, and we had Hong Sang-soo on the Thursday. So it was a really strong week. It’s planned that way to make people stay, but on Josephine, the film team also wanted the Friday because of Channing Tatum’s availability, and that worked well.”
English (US) ·