Every year, Berlin hosts the Berlinale, an international film festival that screens current films in many of the city's cinemas. For the 2018 Berlinale, young people and young adults aged 18 to 26 from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Somalia, and Albania wrote "FilmblogBerlin2018" about films and their experiences at the festival. The blog is now closed, but its online publication offers diverse insights into the 2018 Berlinale.
The Berlinale is over. Twenty teenagers and young adults were able to participate in this event for ten days, immersing themselves in the festival atmosphere, watching films, meeting filmmakers in cinemas, approaching people, asking questions, discussing films, and, above all, writing about it.
Over the course of the festival, synopses and descriptions of camerawork, filming locations, lighting, and acting evolved into texts that referenced the authors' personal stories. They express themselves courageously, openly, and critically on political and socially relevant topics such as oppression, torture, violence, war, migration, equality, love, and sexuality. They used the blog as a tool to communicate their observations and views to readers through text, titles, and images.
The collected festival experiences, stories, film reviews and self-reflections can filmblogberlin2018.wordpress.combe read
We would like to thank
all the creators and participants for their commitment and the fantastic blog that has resulted,
Berlinale GmbH for their support, and all the sponsors for making this project possible…
...and we hope and look forward to a continuation of the film blog for the Berlinale next year 2019.
The project is/was a collaboration between the wannseeFORUM Foundation, the Welcome Alliance for Refugees in Steglitz-Zehlendorf, and the Concrete Narrative Society eV.
A project within the framework of "Culture Makes You Strong! – I am HERE! Welcome." Funded by: Federal Ministry of Education and Research
Supervised by: The Paritätische Gesamtverband (Parity Welfare Association)
