Berlinale 2009

Day 1- The Sony Center.
They say that in the summertime it´s a beautiful city, but in February it is cold and dark. It doesn’t matter anyway, because during the next 10 days I will not get out much.
Today has been spent travelling and setting up office, tomorrow the work begins.
Over the years I have lived many different places in the city during the festival, this year is something special, because I am in the centre of everything – in the middle of the Sony Centre – surreal :-)

Day 2 – Reading.
I spend most of the day reading and planning, trying to figure out which movies to watch in the coming week. At noon I went out to pick up my accreditation and to collect all the information I need to plan a successful festival. Even though “The Berlin Film Festival” is one of the best organised festivals, I spent hours walking from one place to another or waiting in different lines before I had collected all items needed. The rest is reading, planning, reading, planning and so on…..welcome to “The Berlinale” and “The European Film Market”.

Day 3 – A Good Day.
Today has been a good day. I’ve watched four movies, three good- or acceptable ones and one that will not be remembered as a masterpiece :-): I got an overview of the “party-situation” as well and have picked up an invitation for the Danish Filminstitute event, which to me is the most important one as it gives me the opportunely to meet my Danish or Scandinavian colleges. I also have a couple of dinner engagements. Some are in place, one couple is still undecided, waiting for the participants to figures out their screening schedules before they know when they are free to dine. I found a new place to pick up tickets 200 meters from my Sony Centre apartment. I have not jet gotten over living in the middle of everything, it´s fantastic!

Day 4 – A Long day.
Fifteen hours, five movies and one party later, finishing the day with a shower and a cold beer almost makes you feel human again. It has been one of those days; with 30- 45 minute intervals between most of my engagements, not really time enough to relax nor to have a proper meal, but in a fifteen hour working day it all adds up. I went to my first public screening this evening at the Zoo Palast. Berlin is not only one of the major professional film festivals, it is also a festival for the ordinary cinemagoer. As a professional you have access to these screenings as well. For a person that very seldom watches movies together with a paying audience, it is nice to feel their anticipation and enthusiasm. It makes me remember why I am in this business, even though I am sharing the experience with a predominantly German audience. Luckily, in my experience, people that love going to movies are the same all over the world.

Day 5 – Jetlag is coming.
I can feel it coming since I am loosing my sense of time and place. It is nothing unusual because the same thing happens at every festival. Somewhere around day six I get festival jetlagged. I loose my sense of time, I can’t remember what weekday it is and I really have to concentrate not to miss anything or forget any appointments. Apart from that, it´s been one of those days where I am thinking that I probably should have stayed at home and watched some DVD’s. Because five movies and twelve hours later, I have to admit that not one of them is good for anything. It is very interesting that it´s just as important to see the bad films as the good ones, because running a successful cinema operation is very much about being able to say “no thank you” at the right time and in the right place. Spotting the good movies is easy, avoiding the bad ones is a lot harder. All-in-all the most exiting events of the day has been taking a wrong turn on the way to the Urania Cinema, making me end up in an area with lots of “ladies for sale” and then of course, crossing Potsdamer Strasse the obligatory fifteen times.

Day 6 – A day for socializing-
Today has been a day for socializing, which means I have only watched two movies; the rest of the day has been spent talking to business partners and other contacts. But socializing is a part of attending a film festival and the contacts I get and those I keep will help me in the programming and the running of the Cinemas in the coming month. At this point I have seen sixteen movies and that’s not bad for being half way through the festival, so I should not have a bad conscience for not having watched more movies today.

Day 7 – Mondays I have to work
It doesn’t matter where I am in the world, it doesn’t matter if I am on a business trip, on holiday or sick, on Mondays I have to work. Every Monday I plan which movies are going to be playing in my cinemas starting the following Friday. This only goes for Næstved and Empire, Reprisen is different since it has programs that last up to two months at a time.
It takes about two to three hours to do the actual work, but there are some other practical tings that have to be in place too, so it takes a little longer before the whole thing is settled and the repertoire is available in the ticket-sale-computer-system and also made accessible on our website. Today is Monday; I have finished the programming, watched four movies, had dinner with a colleague and attended a party. The whole thing was done on four hours of sleep, so the only thing I can think of right now is going to bed…… ZZZzzzzzzzz……. ;-)

Day 8 – Steady – steady.
Right now it feels like I could go on doing this forever. I know the program and can improvise if it´s necessary. All the little practical things that I had forgotten from last year, like which U-bahn to take to go to a certain cinema, have been re-learned and I am up to speed. Moving steadily ahead, I digest one movie after the other, today’s ration was three movies and one dinner.

Day 9 – The Berlin “Wall”.
I know exactly when it happened; the time was 16.25 in the afternoon and I had just come out of a screening in the Cinestar cinema. My first thought was: What time is it? The next was: It is Wednesday today, isn’t it? It´s a strange feeling to loose track of time and place, but it happens at every festival I attend. After a while I am not just jetlagged anymore, I am sleepwalking. It takes a lot of effort to keep on concentrating on the essentials: What am I going to watch next? Is it good or bad? Can I play it in my cinemas?
Apart from that, I have seen some good movies today. One very good and three average.
Went to a public screening at Friedrichstadtpalats at six o’clock, everyone (probably 1500 people) were applauding, nice atmosphere, I enjoyed it.

Day 10 – The Last Day
Today was the last working day; from now on it is packing and leaving. Tomorrow I will be returning to normal life and next week I will be back in the office, concentrating on lots of other things rather than watching movies. It´s been an okay but not exceptional festival. I have watched a fair amount of “good” movies, but only a few that stood out and among those, none were really commercial. Of course, I had already seen most of the “big” movies presented in Berlin in advance, which means that movies like “The International” and “The Reader” were not a part of “my” festival this year. On the other hand, it has given me the opportunity to focus on more specialized movies and it is by watching those that you discover the true “gems”. This year’s discovery was a Japanese movie called “Departures”– a beautiful, exotic and touching movie about a man whose job it is to prepare dead bodies for the funeral.
By now, I guess the only thing left is saying goodbye to The Berlinale 2009, Potsdamer Platz and the Germans. See you all next year, its been a pleasure – as always…:-)