{"id":8394,"date":"2026-02-10T19:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T19:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/8394\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T19:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T19:06:11","slug":"berlin-head-tricia-tuttle-on-building-fest-that-chimes-with-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/8394\/","title":{"rendered":"Berlin Head Tricia Tuttle On Building Fest That Chimes With Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Berlin<\/a> Film Festival opens Thursday with Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat\u2019s No Good Men in which she also stars as the protagonist female camera operator battling sexism in Kabul in the weeks leading up to the withdrawal of U.S. troops in August 2021.<\/p>\n

\n\tFestival Director Tricia Tuttle<\/a> first connected with Sadat during her 10-year-stint at the London Film Festival which programmed her first two films Wolf and Sheep and The Orphanage.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWith our opening night, we want to surprise. I think it\u2019s always good to try to do something different every year,\u201d she says. \u201cI really loved her first two films. She screened them in London, first when I was deputy, and then when I was director. The new film is very different. It\u2019s a political film, but also really affects the heart. I think audiences are going to respond to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018No Good Men\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAdomeit Film<\/p>\n

\n\tSadat and her family were among some 120,000 people deemed at risk under the impending Taliban rule and airlifted out of Kabul\u2019s Hamid Karzai International Airport amid chaotic scenes in August 2021. She is now living in Germany.<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked if the choice of No Good Men is also a rebuttal of rising anti-immigrant sentiment in Germany and wider Europe, Tuttle replies: \u201cIt is that in a way but it\u2019s not directly about that. I mean we love that it\u2019s a film that gives a very beautiful human face to the experience of someone who\u2019s living in exile not by choice, but because they had to leave. \u00a0It\u2019s very touching. It reminded me again of my own responsibility to see people as individuals who might need my help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShe has also made it with the refugee community, so there is also that, but I certainly don\u2019t want it to feel like medicine for our audience, because it\u2019s not that kind of film. I expect people to be touched and to laugh. It\u2019s also about using our platform to lift-up an interesting filmmaker whose film could have a tough time in the marketplace. We can give her our spotlight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBalance & Market Connection <\/p>\n

\n\tThe idea of supporting cinema at every level is a leitmotif running through the selection pulled together by Tuttle and her programmers this year. Tuttle says one of her priorities for her second edition at the helm was to beef up the variety of films being showcased as well as ensure that the selection was cohesive with the European Film Market (EFM<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne of the things I always loved about the Berlinale is that balance between different types of cinemas. I think we\u2019ve achieved that this year, especially in the competition,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe points to the variety of genres mingled in with drama in the competition lineup including animation with A New Dawn by Yoshitoshi Shinomiya, western with Wolfram by Warwick Thornton, thrillers such as Dust by Anke Blond\u00e9<\/a>\u00a0and Josephine by Beth de Ara\u00fajo and horror with Nightborn by Hanna Bergholm.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWith each of the 22 films, every one of the \u00a0filmmakers is doing something that is elevated and worthy of being considered deeply and being reviewed. They are working at the top of their game, but each of them is doing something different.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTuttle hopes that the selection will work with both the Berlinale audience and the buyers and sellers attending the European Film Market.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe want the two parts of the Berlinale\u2019s brain to work for coherently, that is the European Film Market and the public facing side,\u201d she says, noting that while both poles of the event are flourishing in terms of attendance, with the festival selling a record 336,000 tickets in 2025, they had become \u201ca little separated from one another\u201d in recent years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou can\u2019t make it happen but this year there are lots of interesting films that are for sale in the market. I heard from buyers last year that while they loved the quality of the program it was harder for them. I hope there are some films here that they might find it easier to creative and reach audiences with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Dust\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tShe points to Belgian thriller Dust as a title with crossover potential while, since this interview, Josephine has started to pick up sales heat<\/a> following its double Grand Jury and Audience Award prizes at Sundance.<\/p>\n

\n\tBeyond sales, Tuttle is also thinking about the current challenges facing indie distribution and exhibition sector. \u201cWhat I\u2019d love to see happen is some solution-based thinking about supporting independent cinemas and trying to incentivize cinemas to play good European films and to keep them on for longer,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe competition also features directors who in recent years have been more likely to debut their work in Cannes and\/ Venice such as Karim Ainouz with Rosebush Pruning, Korn\u00e9l Mundrucz\u00f3\u00a0with At The Sea, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun\u2019s new feature\u00a0Soumsoum, The Night Of The Stars<\/a> and Thornton with Wolfram.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMany of them also screened in Berlin too. We\u2019ve got good relationships with them and it\u2019s nice they feel they can come back. I know they love our audiences and I think the energy that we brought to the festival last year also helped.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere was chatter on film forums in the wake of the lineup announcement in January that some of the more high-profile Golden Bear contenders had been turned down by Cannes and Venice.<\/p>\n

\n\tQuestioned on this, Tuttle replies: \u201cWe don\u2019t know what other festivals see or don\u2019t see. We have been considering films which made our final programme since March 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother talking point is the dearth of studio and starry elevated U.S. indie titles debuting at the festival, dashing hopes up that soon-to-be-released pictures like Warner Bros.\u2019 The Bride! With Jessie Buckley, A24\u2019s The Drama with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson and Amazon MGM Studios\u2019 Project Hail Mary with Ryan Gosling and Sandra H\u00fcller might land at the festival. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTuttle says the Berlinale has great relationships with the studios but suggests their reluctance to showcase big titles at the festival is part of a wider trend.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI actually think this is something you\u2019re going to see more of\u2026 some of the biggest films of the year like Sinners, One Battle After Another and even Marty Supreme, which is not a studio film but had a private screening in New York, did not premiere in festivals and launched straight into the marketplace.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re alone in this. We knock on the door of Netflix, Amazon, Universal and Disney, and we\u2019ve got really good relationships with them but no matter what the festival is, it only works if the dates are close to the planned international release.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMona Fastvold, left, and Amanda Seyfried<\/p>\n

\n\tSearchlight Pictures is working with the festival. In the same way that the Berlinale last year hosted the German premiere for A Complete Unknown, which saw its star Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet hit the red carpet in a baby pink ensemble, the festival will welcome Mona Fastvold<\/a>\u2019s Venice title The Testament Of Anne Lee with Amanda Seyfried.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI love Mona and Amanda Seyfried has a relationship with the festival. She has been lots of time before,\u201d says Tuttle of the actress, who was last in Berlin with Atom Egoyan\u2019s Seven Veils in 2024. \u201cWe\u2019re also going to screen a 70mm print which I am excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere will be plenty of other action on the red carpet <\/a>with Michelle Yeoh attending as the Honorary Golden Bear guest of honor while other stars due in Berlin include Pamela Anderson and Callum Turner (Rosebush Pruning), Ethan Hawke (The Weight), Bella Ramsay (Starry Dancer), Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan (Josephine), John Turturro (The Only Living Pickpocket in New York) and Charli xcx (The Moment) among many others. <\/p>\n

\n\tCalmer Mood<\/p>\n

\n\tOutside of the film program and market, the general mood going into the festival feels calmer than in recent years even if the outside world is increasingly politically turbulent.<\/p>\n

\n\tFears over the rise of Germany\u2019s far-right AfD party, which hung over the festival last year due to a federal election on the final weekend in which it was expected to make big gains, are not at the forefront of concerns this year.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe AfD went onto take a record 20% of the national vote but did not make big inroads in Berlin. Tuttle acknowledges that while not an immediate fear, the general rise of far-right politics bubbles as a concern in the background.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s not something we\u2019re thinking about right now even if it\u2019s a very real threat in every single country in the world where you see a rising populist right and things could change overnight,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe fallout from the row over the 2024 winner No Other Land, amid tensions over the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza and the hostage crisis, which prompted claims of antisemitism on one side, and a boycott by Arab filmmakers on the other, also appears to have subsided for now. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve done a lot of work reaching out to people before the festival. We had conversations behind the scenes. The biggest fear was around being silenced\u2026 and I think we\u2019ve taken some of the inflammation out of the conversation. This is a horrific conflict that has affected people all over the world but it\u2019s important for us that directors feel the Berlinale is a place where they can come and show their work and not be silenced or censored,\u201d says Tuttle. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Berlin Film Festival opens Thursday with Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat\u2019s No Good Men in which she also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,3146,3148,190,4653],"class_list":{"0":"post-8394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-berlin-film-festival","10":"tag-efm","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-tricia-tuttle"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}