A debut for Kazakhstan

This year, the first Kazakh film (“Harmony Lessons”) was in competition at the Berlinale.

With “Harmony Lessons” for the first time ran a competition at the Berlin film from Kazakhstan, the debut of young director Emir Baigazin. In sophisticated imagery, that makes conscious a cool distance from the events, he tells of an idiosyncratic, obsessive pupil who is bullied by his classmates. Chief action is increasingly brutalized and refers to the state of a society that has no values no morals.

The films from the East were almost with a documentary accuracy, directness of the narrative and visual experimentation. Most American movies like “Promised Land” by Gus Van Sant and “Side Effects” of Steven Soderbergh were at best average conventional. The participation of a significant work such as “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman” in the competition can be explained on the red carpet at all, only with the presence of the main character, the young star Shia LaBeouf.

Here, the Berlinale, which is repeatedly demanded star presence from Boulevard had, one on an unsustainable compromise. The honor of American cinema saved the indie director David Gordon Green with the wonderfully melancholy, philosophical comedy “Prince Avalanche” with Emile Hirsch and Paul Rudd, a remake of an Icelandic film. Two workers renew the road markings in a devastated forest fire area, they talk about God, the world and the love that solve any of the mysteries of life, but perhaps bring us the nature of loneliness a little closer, not to be confused here with helplessness.

Green, who takes a Silver Bear for Best Director with home, remembered with emotion at its very first festival – 13 years ago with his indie gem “George Washington”, at the Berlinale. Thus, a circle has closed for him. Gorgeous Paulina Garcia as “Gloria”
Her big moment: Paulina Garcia gets the Silver Bear by Andreas Dresen

A favorite of the festival, the gorgeous Chilean actress Paulina Garcia, was awarded the Silver Bear for her portrayal of “Gloria” about a woman in her late 50, which will not put up with her loneliness and still goes in search of love. Inspired by Andreas Dresen and from the hand of this German director and jury member, Garcia received the bear.