Wim Wender’s says movies can change the world but not in a political way
“ There’s a big discrepancy on this planet between people who want to live their lives and governments who have other ideas. So I think films enter that discrepancy.”
The 2026 season of berlin international film festival was kicked off on February 12th, and at a press conference this year’s Jury president Wim wenders has said that he the art of creating movies as an act of bridge building and generating empathy. The reporters have asked him questions relating to the current state of the world. “No movie has really changed any politician’s idea. But we can change the idea people have of how they should live”, and he continued that, “ There’s a big discrepancy on this planet between people who want to live their lives and governments who have other ideas. So I think films enter that discrepancy.”
When a question about the ongoing war in gaza was asked by one of the journalists, Wender tackled it by saying, “We have to stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics”, and concluded that filmmakers are the counterweight of politics and that they have to do the work of the people and not the work of the politicians. One of the jury members, Ewa puszczyńska who is a polish producer also stated that the framing of the question was ‘unfair’, and continued, “Of course, we are trying to talk to people and make them think, but we cannot be responsible for what their decision would be, to support Israel or to support Palestine.”
The livestreaming of this event has experienced technical glitches during this exact question and many people thought that it was deliberately done to censor. But the festival later issued a statement saying, “We had technical problems with the web streaming of the Press Conference with the International Jury this morning. We would like to extend our sincere apologies. The full recording of the Press Conference will be made available on the Berlinale Website and on youtube as soon as possible”.
This year, along with Wenders as the president, the jury team constituted of American director Reinaldo Marcus Green, Japanese filmmaker Hikari , producer Ewa Puszczyńska, Nepalese director Min Bahadur Bham , South Korean actress Bae Doona and Indian director andproducer Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, who are set to judge 22 films in the main festival’s main competition category.
The Berlin film festival is considered as one of the holy grails celebrating cinema in Europe along with the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival. It is set to take place from February 12th, 2026 to February 22nd, 2026.
This article is written by Yoga Adithya , a student of Loyola Academy, Secunderabad, interning with Deccan Chronicle.
