My overall impression of the 67th Berlinale, weak, a festival that took itself too seriously while lacking strong films to make itself intriguing or exciting, leaning more on the pretentious side. Politics, politics, politics, and more politics mixed in with glooming subject matter material do not make a film festival important, especially if many of the films showing are mediocre. If the subject matter was dreary, self-indulgent, two hours long, it got a slot in the program; it did not matter if the film was unwatchable.
The size of the festival of the festival has become a problem. The Berlinale has become a festival of quantity over quality, too many sections and too many films. Bragging about how many films you have is one matter, but how many are worth anything?
Berlinale has taken a position of being overtly serious, regulating glamour and other elements that make film fun to the backseat, only films with a message should play here, not driven my market forces as they brag. What makes cinema inspiring were the very ingredients the festival lacked this year, fun, excitement, intrigue, and inspiration. Artistic, using this word loosely, lecturing with a hammer blow to the eyes became nauseating.
I am looking forward to the 68th Berlinale.