Berlinale Director Tricia Tuttle Takes Stock Of First Edition

Berlin Film Festival director Tricia Tuttle has voiced her concerns about the rise of the far-right as Germany gears up for a general election this Sunday in which the extreme right-wing, Elon Musk and JD Vance-backed AfD party is projected to make significant gains.

“I don’t know anyone that has an interest in a pluralistic society that values difference, that isn’t worried about what’s happening with the rise of the far-right, because that’s the antithesis of that. It’s about closing down and fearing difference. I’m as worried as a lot of other people are here,” she said

Questioned on whether she would reconsider her role at the festival if AfD were to gain any sort of administrative influence in Germany, Tuttle said it would depend on whether she was able to continue the mission she was hired for.

“I’m here at the Berlinale to build a dynamic, international film festival that shows off German cinema on an international stage and also energizes local audiences. But if the country wants something that’s more domestic and the government changes, then I’m not the right person for that,” she said.  

Like its first edition in 1951 – a year in which East-West tensions were running high over the future of Berlin and the Korean War – the 75th Berlinale, running from February 13 to 23, has also unfolded against tumultuous times.

Beyond Sunday night’s elections, in which AfD are predicted to come in second, Germany and its European allies are getting to grips with the destabilizing force of newly elected President Donald Trump as he attempts to strong-arm a Russia-Ukraine peace deal and force Palestinians out of Gaza, straining long-standing transatlantic alliances in the process.

Against this backdrop, some 200 films have been playing in more than 30 venues across Berlin.  Many have reflected the times, from opening picture The Light, about a liberal-minded Berlin family grappling with the new age of uncertainty, and Michel Franco’s Dreams, tackling the U.S.-Mexico migrant stand-off, to Radu Jude’s Kontinental ’25, delving into corruption, nationalism and racism in his home country of Romania, and Kateryna Gornostai’s Timestamp, about the effects of war on everyday life in Ukraine.

U.S-born festival exec Tuttle, who was previously head of the BFI London Film Festival, was speaking to Deadline in the closing days of her well-received inaugural edition as director of the Berlinale, having taken up the post in spring 2024 when the event was in disarray.

By contrast, the vibe this year, as the festival celebrates its 75th edition, has been broadly positive with international industry professionals and local spectators alike embracing Tuttle.

“I’m feeling completely exhausted but happy and proud of my team. I set myself lots of goals, and I feel like I achieved them with the team,” said Tuttle.

“It’s also been hard in lots of ways, it always is, but I loved the hundreds of people coming up to me – audiences, press – who connected with the films and that’s what it’s all about.”

Incoming goals included securing the budget; modernizing and expanding the festival’s infrastructure; building a team – which saw her appoint Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz as her immediate programming deputies – and connecting with the German film industry.

“I wanted to connect with the German industry, because I need that support, and I had to understand how I can support German distributors and exhibitors and filmmakers in a way that feels right for an international festival,” she says.

“I had to do all that very quickly so I could then focus on the program and deliver the kind of program that I wanted to.”

Tuttle, who was hired on a five-year contract, suggests her first edition has laid a good foundation for her longer-term plan for the festival.

“I have a very good sense of the direction of travel and what I want to do with the festival in my five years that I have here. What we did this year is definitely moving in that direction,” she said.

“We want to create an incredibly diverse program that has a lot of energy to it. I see it as a welcoming and warm cinephilia that everybody’s invited to. I love that lots of people are seeing different films… arguing about films and disagreeing about films, but also that they’re doing that in a way that is really lively. I’ve also enjoyed having the glamor and excitement of some big international stars here. I think that does add something and also opens the festival up to new people.”

Stars hitting the red carpet this year as part of the Berlinale Special gala line-up included Timothée Chalamet for James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown; Robert Pattinson in Bong Joon Ho’s long-awaited sci-fi comedy Mickey 17, as well as Liu Haocun and Wen QI for Chinese director Vivian Qu’s Girls on Wire, for whom fans travelled from across Europe.

Tuttle reveals that the festival redesigned the entrance to the Berlinale Palast this year to lengthen the red carpet and enlarge the audience pen which she believes boosted the atmosphere this year,

“There so much energy and a lot of excitement,” she says.

“For Girls on Wire, the crowd pen response to the young stars of the film was super exciting. Yesterday, we screened Timestamp, and the pen was full of Ukrainians. It was really so moving and so beautiful to be there,” she adds.

Tuttle acknowledges that the buzzy premieres Fox Searchlight’s A Complete Unknown Warner Bros.-backed Mickey 17, will likely set the festival in good stead for securing studio titles next year.

“Every single one of our filmmakers who worked with us, who I’ve talked to, really, really loved their experiences at the Berlinale,” she said.

“I don’t want to talk about specific conversations, but I’ve had a lot of positive feedback about how it felt and how impactful it was for the films. I think we’ve done a lot of work that will help us build a stronger program next year.”

Beyond dealing with the budget, infrastructure and the program, a major challenge for Tuttle has been ensuring that the Berlinale, which has a reputation for being the most political of Europe’s A-list film festivals, remains a platform for free speech at the same time as fostering respectful dialogue.

She and her team have attempted to head-off a repeat of last year’s edition in which opposing views over the Israel-Palestine conflict, spilled into the opening night, with winners and jury members criticizing Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, sparking accusations of antisemitism by local politicians, with briefings and posts laying out the festival’s stance and protocol on free speech.

In spite of these efforts, the festival is currently grappling with the fall-out from a pro-Palestinian speech by Hong Kong filmmaker Jun Li, which is now subject to a police investigation after an audience member reported him for using language which is potentially banned under German law.

Tuttle says the festival remains committed to protecting free speech within the bounds of German law, but admits it has been one of the most challenging aspects of her job this year.

“German law around free speech is pretty open and broad, but there are definitely laws around hate speech and laws around antisemitism that are different from state to state, and they’re also being defined by court cases,” she said.

“I’ve tried to communicate, with my team, as clearly as we can with people about court precedents, so that people understand what can be said here and what can’t. Even though it can be very hard, we really believe in people being able to speak about the world, but also stress the need to be culturally sensitive,” she continued.

“That doesn’t mean don’t speak, it means if you want people to listen to you, try to speak so that people can hear what you’re saying. Communication is a two-way thing. Most of the people who’ve come to the festival this year have done that. I’ve seen many places where people have had interesting, profound, difficult conversations, and where the audience has contributed too. It’s tough. I don’t think it’s a losing battle, but it’s very, very difficult and probably the hardest part of my job.”

Tuttle herself courted controversy around the Israel-Palestine conflict when she joined a red carpet vigil on the opening night for Israeli Gaza hostage David Cunio, whose story is captured in Tom Shoval’s moving personal work A Letter to David which played in the festival. This show of support angered some pro-Palestinian guests who saw it as partisan.

Tuttle stands by her action alluding to comments by Tilda Swinton, who was at the festival this year to received an Honorary Golden Bear, and made an impassioned political speech on the opening night.

“I understand that sense of not feeling visible. I really, really get it but Tilda said it: being for someone doesn’t mean being against someone else. There was a vigil happening on my red carpet, one that I didn’t organize, but I’m empathetic towards David Cunio and what his family are going through. He’s an alumni filmmaker. I feel that is an appropriate thing for me to show solidarity and empathy with,” said Tuttle.

“But that doesn’t mean that I’m also not deeply, deeply sad about all of the lives lost in Gaza and the fact that the world’s most powerful politician is threatening to expel people from their land. We can show empathy for many, many, many different people.”

Beyond politics, Tuttle’s first year in the job appears to have met with approval from local audiences, with the festival posting a 5% rise in ticket sale results up until last Wednesday, although she batted back a suggestion that it is due to her arrival in the festival director role.

“I don’t think that has ever been the festival’s problem,” she said

“The festival has an incredibly loyal, interested and engaged local audience. Last year, there were 325,000 tickets sold, so this year is a little higher than that. The Berlinale’s incredible audience, that’s definitely not one of the things we want to renew or fix.”

That said, Tuttle has put in place a number of initiatives aimed at bringing in new audiences, such as streaming the opening night into seven cinemas across Germany and the new Hub 75, hosting a free program of morning talks and events.

“All film festivals are a bubble because this is where we’re showing some of the most adventurous cinema. These aren’t necessarily the films that will get huge, wide distribution. It’s a creative and artistic intervention. It’s about igniting people, getting people excited about different kinds of cinema. I’m really interested in how we welcome new audiences, but I don’t think you change your program to do that,” explained Tuttle.

“You change your sense of welcome and makes things easier to navigate. You find doors and windows to open. It’s not about radically reinventing yourself. I have seen in other jobs that that can have a real ripple effect. What I’m aiming for over four, five years, is that new people who maybe don’t know the Berlinale or think it’s not for them will start to come.”

Other innovations include the launch of the new competitive Perspectives sidebar championing 14 first films, with highlights including The Settlement by Mohamed Rashad, BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions by Kahlil Joseph, Little Trouble Girls by Urska Djukic and Balint Daniel Sos’s Growing Down.  

“It 100% worked,” says Tuttle as she appraises the inaugural run. “It made all the nominations more visible and did very much what we wanted to do with the section. I’m very committed to it. Everybody’s got a different idea about how to run the festival, but this is really part of what I want to do. Of course, I want feedback but right now what I’m hearing overwhelmingly is that it worked for the filmmakers as well as audiences and buyers.”

The Berlinale’s parallel European Film Market was equally buzzy with its main venues of the Gropius Bau and Marriott Hotel packed out with people taking meetings, although transactional news was slow on the ground.

“The major headline deals, there weren’t so many of them, but I suspect that’s more about where the industry is right now than the market (EFM) itself. I think it’s taking longer to get the deals worked out, so we’re not getting that sort of lightning strike moment in any market or any festival right now,” commented Tuttle.

“But what I heard from mid-sized independent distributors, who pick up bigger art house titles, is that it was a very, very positive market for them. They were really excited,” she continued. “The sellers of those works also seem seemed happy but I think it’s a tough period. In the last quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year, there’s been some positive signs with independent exhibition and a wider range of films doing well, but we still have a long way to go for recovery, and what we’re seeing is that everybody’s very cautious.”