Berlinale opens with star Cillian Murphy in Irish drama

Actor Cillian Murphy, one of the favorites in this year's Oscar race, will open the Berlinale on Thursday with the world premiere of an Irish drama inspired by true events about unmarried mothers exploited by Catholic sisters.

Small Things Like These, adaptation of the best-seller by Irish writer Claire Keegan, is one of 20 films in competition for the Golden Bear, the highest award at the international film festival from Berlin. To decide between the works, the jury will be led by Mexican-Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o, the first black personality in this prestigious role.

The Berlin event, which takes place from February 15 to 25, kicks off the three major European festivals, before Cannes in May and Venice in September. For its 74th edition, it presents an eclectic program with directors and actors from around the world, stars, political documentaries and arthouse cinema. In Small Things Like These, Irishman Cillian Murphy, in the running for the Oscar for best actor for his role in Oppenheimer, reunites with Belgian filmmaker Tim Mielants from the series Peaky Blinders.

Alongside Northern Irish actress Michelle Fairley (Game of Thrones) and British actress Emily Watson (Chernobyl), Cillian Murphy plays a devoted father who discovers the secret of the Magdalen laundries: between the 1920s and 1990s, in In convents, nuns kept young women in servitude after giving up their babies, born out of wedlock, for adoption. “We are convinced that this story which combines kindness towards the most fragile and the desire to stand up against injustice will resonate with everyone,” recently estimated the Italian Carlo Chatrian, who co-directs the Berlinale for the last time. times with the Dutch Mariette Rissenbeek. They will be replaced next year by the American Tricia Tuttle.

Among the stars expected in Berlin, the legendary American director Martin Scorsese will be awarded an honorary Golden Bear for his career. The festival, which has always been characterized by its political commitment, takes place in a tense context, more than four months after the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

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Shortly before its opening, around fifty Berlinale collaborators signed an open letter urging the festival's management to take a stronger stance on "the current offensive against Palestinian life." So far, the leadership has expressed its “compassion for all victims of the humanitarian crises in the Middle East and beyond” and expressed concern “about the rise of anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim sentiment.”

Among the rare films from the region presented at the Berlinale, that of an Israeli-Palestinian collective, No Other Land, shows the destruction of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank by the Israeli authorities and the The unlikely alliance of a Palestinian activist and an Israeli journalist. Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitaï, who has always advocated for peace, will unveil a rereading of Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros, with Franco-Swiss actress Irène Jacob.

Among the works in the running for the Golden Bear is an Iranian film My Favorite Cake, whose two directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha were not authorized to leave their country despite the request festival organizers. On the French side, in competition are Empire, a whimsical remake of Star Wars by Bruno Dumont and Hors du temps by Olivier Assayas, an autobiographical mise en abyme retracing the confinement of a director and his brother.

The African continent, from which no filmmaker has so far won the Golden Bear, is particularly well represented this year in the selection. Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako will present Black Tea, a love story in the African community of Canton and Franco-Senegalese Mati Diop will show Dahomey, a documentary on the restitution of the royal treasures of Abomey in Benin, looted during the colonization of country.