From Golda to The Fabelmans to Blackberry, the films at Berlinale 2023 blur the lines between fiction and reality

Berlinale co-director Mariette Rissenbeek (centre, in red) stands alongside actors Kristen Stewart and Golshifteh Farahani at a show of solidarity with women in Iran during Berlinale 2023.
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Actor and director Sean Penn’s Ukraine documentary  Superpower — which attracted the most media attention ahead of the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) — reveals more about its creator than the situation in the war-torn country. 

The amount of alcohol Penn consumes (lots of Vodka tonic), his thoughts on the Academy Awards (“shame on them for focusing on Will Smith’s slap more than Ukraine”), his inexplicable desire to see the battlefront (“all of Ukraine should feel safe now that I am armed”), his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin many years ago at a film festival, and his efforts at boosting the morale of top Ukrainian air force personnel by taking them to watch  Top Gun: Maverick — the rather sensationalist documentary turns out to be Penn’s vanity project.

Actor-filmmaker Sean Penn at a press conference during the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival.
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The morning after its world premiere, Penn arrives for a press conference wearing a military-style patrol cap à la Zelensky. Except, it says, “Killer Tacos”. “If you get a chance to be on the north shore of Hawaii, it’s the best tacos… the best,” he announces.

The next 30 minutes are mostly about the two-time Oscar-winning actor. He describes Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky as a “friend”, Putin as a “creepy little bully”, Ukraine as “the Beatles of today” and his documentary as an “idiot’s guide to understanding the conflict”.

Penn reiterates that his intention is to pressure Western democracies into sending long-range precision fires to Ukraine. “Growing up in the United States — and this won’t be news to you — we are born with a misguided sense of exceptionalism,” says Penn, who is in nearly every frame of the documentary.

A still from Tina Satter’s film ‘Reality’, which recreates the FBI’s raid on American whistle-blower Reality Winner’s home in 2017.
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Courtesy Berlinale

The films at this year’s Berlinale, which concludes today, expose the porous boundary between reality and fiction.

For instance, playwright-turned-filmmaker Tina Satter’s innovative first film,  Reality, recreates the FBI’s raid on American whistle-blower Reality Winner’s (played by Sydney Sweeney) home in 2017. The single-room drama uses the real audio recording and transcript, captured discreetly by the FBI. 

Although stylistically different, Matthew Johnson’s  Blackberry renders the audience the same feeling of being present. The rather shouty and chaotic competition film recounts the exponential rise of the smartphone brand (dominating up to 45% of the global mobile phone market at one point) followed by a near erasure from the tech industry. Even though highly dramatised, the film incorporates real-life archival footage and has voyeuristic camera work.

‘Golda’ and the casting question

Similar techniques of interweaving fiction with archival footage can be seen in actor Helen Mirren’s latest film,  Golda. Mirren plays Israeli prime minister Golda Meir as she makes complex strategic decisions during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

(L to R) Guy Nattiv, director of  Golda, with the film’s actors Helen Mirren and Lior Ashkenazi during a photocall at Berlinale 2023.
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The excessive use of prosthetics to make Mirren look like Meir is not only jarring but also raises the question of appropriate casting. “Shouldn’t the role go to a Jewish actor,” asks a journalist at a press conference ahead of the film’s premiere. The otherwise outspoken Mirren smiles softly and turns towards director Guy Nattiv, who promptly defends his decision by heaping praise on the Oscar-winning actor. “When I met Helen, it was like meeting a family member. She reminded me of my aunt,” he says. “She has the Jewish chops.”

Co-star Lior Ashkenazi too jumps to Mirren’s defense. “Let us say that we are making a movie about Jesus Christ. Who is going to play him,” he asks, as the room fills with laugher. Mirren finally chimes in, “It won’t be me.”

It is not the first time Mirren is playing the lead role of a head of state. She previously won an Academy Award for portraying Queen Elizabeth II in  The Queen (2006). But Mirren believes Meir has more in common with the 16th century British monarch, Elizabeth I. “They have a commitment to the country without being power mad or dictatorial,” she says.

It was Meir’s domestic side however that struck a chord with the 77-year-old English actor. “There was something maternal about her,” Mirren says, fiddling with the collar of her fuchsia turtleneck. “She absolutely loved kitchen equipment. The latest mixer or whatever. I have that in common with her. I always have to have the latest piece of kitchen equipment.”

A still from Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical ‘The Fabelmans’. 
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Courtesy Berlinale

Another film that seeks inspiration from personal narratives is filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical  The Fabelmans. The American auteur, who received the Honarary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement, dips into his fractured childhood and the divorce of his parents to create the deeply intimate drama. “My mom used to say, ‘I have given you so much good material, when will you use it’,” he says at a packed press conference. 

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses the audience digitally at Berlinale 2023.
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The robust exchange between the real and the reel spills on to the red carpet too. After Cannes and Venice last year, Zelensky graces Berlinale with a live digital address on the opening night. Several protests take place outside the venue on issues such as climate justice and freedom of expression in Iran (although the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is conspicuously absent even in the programming).

Actor and jury president Kristen Stewart and Iranian-French actor and jury member Golshifteh Farahani join protesters in support of women and human rights in Iran. Stewart, the youngest-ever head of the international jury, appears shaky while speaking with the press (“sorry I’m such a loser”), but is at her most confident self while discussing the timely programming of Berlinale. “Like it or not, this festival has been historically confrontational and political,” she says, making rare eye contact with journalists.

Actor Anne Hathaway on the red carpet at Berlinale 2023.
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Questions about Ukraine and Iran are directed at all celebrities, irrespective of their films. At the press conference of the romcom,  She Came to Me, which opens the festival, actor Anne Hathaway is asked about her thoughts on the war in Ukraine. Visibly taken aback at first, Hathaway voices her support for Zelensky’s efforts, calling him the “hero of our times”.

Back in its fully in-person format after two years of the pandemic, the festival proudly lives up to its political image, underscoring the pivotal role that cinema can play in making us feel less alone as various crises surround humanity.

The writer is a journalist based in Berlin as a German Chancellor Fellow.