Berlin: Volodymyr Zelensky Opens Festival With Call for Culture to Take Sides in the War in Ukraine
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky opened the Berlin International Film Festival Thursday night with a defiant call for for artists and cultural institutions to “take a stand” in the war in Ukraine and to support his country and his people in their fight against Russian aggression.
“Can art be outside politics, can cinema be outside politics [when] there is a policy of aggression…when there is total war?” he asked, rhetorically, in a video address to the Berlinale audience. “That is the politics of today’s Russia.”
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“Culture chooses a side when it decide to speak out against evil,” the Ukrainian President said, “and it takes a side when it remains silent and in fact helps the evil.”
Playing to his audience of film buffs, Zelensky chose a movie metaphor to make his point: citing German director Wim Wenders and his 1987 classic Wings of Desire, which, Zelensky said, “broke the Berlin Wall two years before it fell…showing the divided city united by angels flying freely over the wall.” Russia, said Zelensky, today wanted to build a wall “between Ukraine and Europe, between freedom and slavery [between] civilization and terror.”
Cinema, said Zelensky, “cannot change the world” but it can “inspire people who can change the world.”
In a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian people, and a show of defiance against Russia, the 2023 Berlin Film Festival invited the Ukraine President to open this year’s Berlinale with the live video message. The audience rose to their feet when Zelensky was introduced and applauded his speech throughout.
Sean Penn — who, with Aaron Kaufman, co-directed the documentary Superpower, a profile of Zelensky and his wartime leadership, premiering in Berlin later this week — introduced Zelensky on stage ahead of the video.
Penn noted that his plans for the documentary changed radically after Russia’s invasion. What was initially supposed to be a “whimsical tale of a comic actor turned president wrote itself into very different” after the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion. Penn, who has just returned from Ukraine, said the will of the Ukrainian people to win the war “if anything it has just gotten stronger.”
In addition to film celebrities on hand in the audience — Berlinale jury president Kristen Stewart and the cast and crew of Rebecca Miller’s opening night film She Came to Me, Anne Hathaway, Marisa Tomei and Peter Dinklage were all in attendance —the Berlinale gala crowd also included several political figures. Almost half the German cabinet was on hand, among them German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck, Food and Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir, Family Minister Lisa Paus, and Culture Minister Claudia Roth, as well as the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Franziska Giffey. Oleksiy Makeev, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany was also there, and raised his fist in deviance when the camera panned to him.
Explaining their decision to hand over the festival stage to the Ukrainian leader, The Berlinale, Berlinale co-directors Mariëtte Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian said the festival wanted to “express solidarity with the people of Ukraine in their fight for its independence and strongly condemn the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Our thoughts and sympathy are with the victims, the suffering population, the millions who left Ukraine and the artists that have remained defending the country and continue filming the war.”
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, Zelensky has been tireless in his use of media events to attract attention to his country’s cause and to drum up political and military support. In addition to speaking before Congress, the U.K. House of Parliament and Germany’s Bundestag, he has made numerous video appearances at major film festivals, including Cannes and Venice last year, and even sent a video message to the Grammys.
Zelensky is not expected to attend Berlin in person, though his wife, Olena Zelenska, may fly in to attend the world premiere of Superpower on Friday night.
