Berlinale Spotlight: World Cinema Fund at “Around the World in 14 Films” 2024

For many years, the Berlinale has been presenting specially curated programmes outside the festival timeframe. The programme goes by the name of Berlinale Spotlight.

For the sixth time since 2018, the Berlinale initiative World Cinema Fund (WCF) is invited with a Berlinale Spotlight at the international film festival “Around the World in 14 Films”. At its 19th edition (November 29 to December 7, 2024 in Berlin), “Around the World in 14 Films” will present an all-day Berlinale Spotlight: World Cinema Fund on Sunday, December 1 with four WCF films. A fifth WCF film will also be screened at the festival.

The five WCF films were made by filmmakers from the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Nigeria, Somalia and Iran: Pepe by Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias (Dominican Republic), Việt and Nam by Minh Quý Trương (Vietnam), The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos by The Agbajowo Collective (Nigeria), The Village Next to Paradise by Mo Harawe (Somalia) and Boomerang by Shahab Fotouhi (Iran).

Vincenzo Bugno, head of the WCF, will introduce the Berlinale Spotlight on December 1: “WCF films aim to continuously expand their audience with their images, film languages and stories, because a variety of perspectives enriches our view of the world. The development of targeted ‘audience strategies’ is an important part of WCF activities. Therefore we work with great partners such as the ‘Around the World in 14 Films’ festival. We share this goal and our great passion for cinema with them.”

The WCF has been funding films in regions with weak film infrastructures since 2004, and promotes cultural diversity in German and European cinema: WCF Profile

“In a world that many people are increasingly evaluating in rigid black and white patterns instead of following complex global events with more empathy and a thirst for knowledge, genuine cultural diversity is existential. The World Cinema Fund supports the visibility of cultural diversity in cinema with a smart and passionate commitment to the lesser-known, often overlooked film regions,” comment Susanne Bieger and Bernhard Karl, the festival directors of “Around the World in 14 Films”.

The five WCF films at “Around the World in 14 Films”:

Director Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias received the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlinale 2024 for his political fable Pepe, whose protagonist is a hippopotamus. In the 1970s, drug lord Pablo Escobar brought four hippos from the USA to his private zoo in Colombia. Pepe tells this story and its consequences as a parable.

Việt and Nam by Minh Quý Trương was screened at more than 25 film festivals. The Vietnamese-French-Swiss-German co-production about two coal miners in love who also have to deal with national and family traumas was censored by the Vietnamese film department for its “gloomy, stagnant and negative view” of the country and its people.

From Nigeria’s mega-metropolis Lagos comes The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos, which celebrated its world premiere in Toronto. The film by the seven-member Agbajowo Collective moves between thriller and magical realism. The story was inspired by the forced evictions and destruction of the fishing community of Otodo Gbame in 2017.

Director Mo Harawe’s debut film The Village Next to Paradise was the first Somali film to be invited to Cannes. The drama is about the everyday life of a family in Somalia and their desire to belong.

Artist and filmmaker Shahab Fotouhi’s drama Boomerang premiered at Venice Days at the Venice Film Festival. Set in Tehran, the film explores the end of old relationships and the beginning of new ones. Sima searches for a new home for herself and her daughter Minoo as her estranged husband reconnects with a former lover while seeking a rare owl. Meanwhile, Minoo meets a boy.

The 19th edition of “Around the World in 14 Films” will take place from November 29 to December 7, 2024 at the KulturBrauerei cinema and at the cinemas delphi LUX, Neues Off and Rollberg.

The programme will be published on November 8: 14films.de/en/

The World Cinema Fund is an initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Berlin International Film Festival, in cooperation with the German Federal Foreign Office and with further support by the Goethe-Institut.
The special WCF Europe programme was launched with the support of the European Union’s Creative Europe MEDIA programme. Thanks to additional funding from the German Federal Foreign Office, the special programme WCF Africa was started in 2016.