The Berlinale sees its mission as being a showcase for the promotion of the art and industry of cinema while promoting better understanding between cultures from around the world. One of the ways it accomplishes this is through its Wettbewerb, or Competition, category of films. Producers may submit films for consideration for the Wettbewerb if the films have been produced in the 12 months prior to the fest, have not been released anywhere other than in their country of origin, and have not been presented in any other competition or festival. In 2003, 22 films from 13 countries were selected to compete for the Golden Bear (the grand prize for best film). The U.S. had the largest number of films in competition (5), but even countries as varied as Slovenia, the Netherlands, and Senegal had entries.

I had the opportunity to screen 13 of the 22 films, as well as attend press conferences for 10 of them. Although at first the films seemed very different, ultimately I realized that they all had a common thread – that of breaking through borders or boundaries. Some were about obvious, physical boundaries, like refugees trying to escape from Afghanistan or the former Soviet Union, but many were about emotional boundaries that people put up between each other or crossing the boundary between right and wrong. And a few broke cinematic boundaries, blurring the lines between fact and fiction. It is a fascinating mix which requires closer study to really understand what the filmmakers were trying to say.

Two films featured borders of countries and tried to help viewers on the “right” side of the border better understand people on the “wrong” side. The first was the British film In This World (the eventual Golden Bear winner). It is a fictionalized documentary about Afghan refugee cousins who attempt to emigrate from a camp in northwest Pakistan to London using the costly services of people smugglers. The gripping film was made, according to director Michael Winterbottom, as a response to the political climate in Great Britain regarding immigrants. Winterbottom wanted people to better understand the plight of these refugees as well as their reasons for wanting to leave everything they know and everyone they love to start a new life in a strange, new, and often hostile place.

The second film, the German film Lichter (Distant Lights), goes a step further by interweaving the stories of people on the “wrong” side of the border with those of people on the “right” side. Here, the border is between Germany and Poland, and the stories are of people living in the small towns that dot the River Oder, as well as of Ukranian immigrants hoping for a better life in the West. According to director and co-writer Hans-Christian Schmid, the film grew out of experiences he had after moving from Munich to Berlin three years ago. “From Berlin you are just an hour from Poland,” said Schmid, “but I hardly know anyone who has been there. In most cases, contact is restricted to a Polish cleaning woman.” On one level the film addresses the situation of vastly different societies struggling to grow closer in an expanding European community, but on another level it is about individual relationships. In this way, it closely mirrors many of the other Wettbewerb films I screened.

The first of those was Io Non Ho Paura (I’m Not Scared), an Italian/Spanish/British film directed by Gabriele Salvatores (who also directed the 1992 Oscar-winning Best Foreign Film Mediterraneo). The film focuses on nine-year-old Michele, who lives in a southern Italian village in the 1970s. His innocence is shattered when he finds a small boy chained and hidden in a hole by a deserted farmhouse near his home. As the film progresses, Michele is forced to overcome his fears and learn to trust his instincts on what is right and wrong, even if that means defying his parents. In doing so, he crosses the boundary from childhood into adulthood, forms a bond with a stranger, and finds strength he never knew he had.

The main character in the Spanish/Canadian film My Life Without Me, directed by Spanish director Isabel Coixet, also finds strength she never knew she had when she finds out that she only has two months to live. Twenty-three year old Ann (Sarah Polley) lives with her husband and two kids in a trailer in her mother’s back yard. Her life was going nowhere until she finds out she has uterine cancer. With a new urgency to life, she compiles a list of things to do before she dies, arranges her family life, and unexpectedly falls in love with a lonely man she meets at a laundromat. At the film’s press conference, director Coixet said she hopes the film “makes us think about how we spend our lives obsessing about diets and [inconsequential things] when ultimately everything is very simple.” The film shows it is possible to break out of the boundaries we have put on our lives and create something new and beautiful, even in a short two months.

Australian film Alexandra’s Project also tells the story of a woman who finally makes the decision to escape from an unhappy marriage, albeit in a rather dramatic fashion. This psychological thriller stars popular Aussie actor Gary Sweet as Steve, a typical bloke in a typical job with typical wife Alex (Helen Buday) and two typical kids. But all is not as it seems. When Steve comes home on the evening of his birthday, instead of the surprise party he is expecting, he finds a dark house and a video tape that says “Play me”. When he does, he sees his wife wish him happy birthday, then start doing a striptease. All seems well until he sees a gun pointed at her head. Ultimately, the film is about the politics of marriage and discovering that the person you think you have known for years is not the person you knew at all. It is also about how we can pigeonhole people with our words and actions and the strength it takes for someone to break out of those boxes.

The question Dr. Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) faces in the American film Solaris is also about change – namely, are you fated to repeat past mistakes, or can you change? Kelvin is a psychologist who travels to a distant space station after receiving a video message from his friend, the ship’s commander. When he arrives, he finds that most of the crew are dead, but other strange “visitors”, including his long-dead wife, Rheya (Natascha McElhone), are there; or is it Rheya? Ultimately, Solaris is a love story within a science fiction framework, and, as director Steven Soderbergh reiterated during the press conference, deals with the issues of “memory, guilt, potential redemption, and the opportunity to do something again and maybe do it differently.” Kelvin longs to have a second chance with his wife and find the right way to relate to her, but in the end, he discovers that “there are no answers, only choices.”

The three women in the British film The Hours are also forced to make choices about the direction of their lives. The film links the events of a single day in the lives of the three – Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) as she begins writing Mrs. Dalloway, a 1940s housewife (Julianne Moore) who is reading Mrs. Dalloway, and a modern-day New Yorker (Meryl Streep) who, in her younger years, was nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway. All are joined in their depression, alienation, and search for love, and all struggle through this one day to ultimately break out of the life they have defined for themselves and/or others have defined for them. As director Stephen Daldry explained, “Each woman longs for something she doesn’t possess – sanity, freedom, passion,” but none of them are quite sure how to go about finding it. In the end, they find they must take drastic steps in order to survive.

The decision to give up fighting for survival is a key element of the French film Son Frère (His Brother). Directed by Patrice Chereau (who also directed the 2001 Golden Bear winner Intimacy and who won the Silver Bear for Best Director this year), Son Frère tells the story of two brothers, one who is diagnosed with a blood disease and decides to die rather than fight it, and the other who had lost contact with his family but now comes to help his brother. The film is an intimate look at the process of dying and the degradation of the body and spirit that accompanies it, but ultimately I found the film to also be hopeful, demonstrating that lines of communication can be reestablished and that long-standing patterns of behavior can be changed.

Reconnecting with family and friends is also a theme of the American Spike Lee film 25th Hour. It is the story of Monty Brogan (Edward Norton), a drug dealer who only has 25 hours of freedom left before starting a seven-year prison sentence. The interesting aspect of the story is that most of the major crises in Monty’s life have already happened – the moral choices have been made, the consequences about to be suffered – and the only thing left is to try to make sense of this life he has chosen. He does this by getting together with his best friends to have a last night blowout where everything is said and nothing is avoided. It is a night of taking responsibility for actions and going through the anger, regret, rage, and ultimately, acceptance of the fate that those actions have brought. In the end, all of the characters’ lives are changed forever.

Monty Brogan obviously crossed the line between right and wrong. But what about actions and beliefs that fall in the vast grey area? This is the subject of the American film The Life of David Gale by British director Alan Parker. It tells the story of a Texas college professor (Kevin Spacey), a campaigner against capital punishment who ironically is placed on death row when he is convicted of the rape and murder of a colleague (Laura Linney). In the three days before his execution he finally tells his story to a young reporter (Kate Winslet) in hopes she will help him expose the truth of what really happened. The film shows both sides of the death penalty debate, and even star Kevin Spacey was impartial when asked about his views during the press conference, stating that he is in principle against the death penalty but acknowledges that he has never had a family member murdered and can understand families wanting justice. Trying to determine where the boundary is between right and wrong, and when it is crossed, is a challenging proposition.

The main character Robert in the German film Der Alte Affe Angst (Angst) obviously crosses the line when he cheats on his partner Marie, even though he is in a state of shock and recklessness after his father has died. However, this film shows us that even in the worst of circumstances, people can break through the emotional boundaries that they have built up and find a way to forgive. Fear – of death, of abandonment, of failure – causes people to act in strange ways, and often only love can conquer the fear. In this film, Marie realizes that the only way for her to survive and heal is to love and forgive Robert, and hope that he can find a way through all his baggage to love her back.

Survival required a major change in attitude and behavior for both Marie and Robert. Changing in order to survive is also one of the themes of the American film Adaptation. A complicated story that blends elements of Susan Orlean’s book The Orchid Thief with the real-life story of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s attempts to adapt the book into a screenplay, Adaptation deals with everything from the creative process to writer’s block to filmmaking to – most importantly – the search for meaning or passion in life. But the most interesting aspect of Adaptation is how it crosses the boundary between fact and fiction. It has real-life characters who do some things as they did in real life (and many things that they didn’t) as well as fictionalized characters like Charlie Kaufman’s twin brother Donald (played, as is Charlie, by Nicolas Cage). In the end, Adaptation is an interesting look at the need to take risks in order to survive in the world.

The last Wettbewerb film I screened, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, was also a risky venture for first-time director George Clooney. Its source was legendary American TV producer Chuck Barris’ autobiography, in which he confessed to being a secret agent who murdered 33 people. The obvious question throughout is – is this fact or is it fiction? Wisely (in my opinion), that question is left unanswered. The film’s schizophrenic style perfectly matches the living-in-two-worlds reality of Barris, and Sam Rockwell (who won the Silver Bear for Best Actor) conveys Barris’ fears and self-doubts perfectly. And in the end, the film makes you wonder why the person who started the “reality show” craze would create an alternate reality for himself.

In all, watching the Wettbewerb films was a journey of discovery. From political statements to portraits of emotionally-wounded people to the start of “reality” television, the films crossed many boundaries and certainly made me think. In fact, I think the Berlinale was the big winner in picking provocative films to screen. There is much to be gained by exposure to different cultures and ideas, and the stories and characters in these films were believable enough to relate to and different enough to learn from. (KG)