Berlinale: NATIVe – A Journey into Indigenous Cinema
Starting this year, the Berlinale will devote itself to the cinematic storytelling of Indigenous peoples in a special series entitled “NATIVe – A Journey into Indigenous Cinema”. In its first year, the series will begin with a territorial focus on films from Oceania, Australia, North America and the Arctic.
The programme of 24 short and feature-length fictional and documentary films includes groundbreaking Indigenous cinema from the past five decades. The special series will open with the award-winning film Atanarjuat The Fast Runner by Inuit director Zacharias Kunuk on February 8, at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.
The project was developed with the support of an international team of Indigenous advisors who also co-curated the film programme. They will all attend the Festival.
With this special series, the Berlinale aims to draw attention to both the film culture and complexity of the history of Indigenous peoples. At the same time, the project will call attention to current events, such as the Canadian grassroots movement “Idle No More” and the hunger strike of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence.
“Conceptualising such a programme is an extraordinary adventure, especially here in Germany, the homeland of Karl May, where Native Americans are more often than not known as ‘Indians’, people who still live in teepees and smoke peace pipes,” comments NATIVe’s curator Maryanne Redpath.
