The Competition is the main event of the Berlinale and was the original seed out of which the Festival, in all its many parts, has grown.

 

The first International Film Festival Berlin was envisioned as an international cultural event that was to bring the postwar world to Berlin and Berlin to the world. Obviously this also had its political side. And in fact there was the financial side as well - this was seen as an opportunity to help get the decimated film industry in Berlin back on its feet.

 

The Festival originally began with the intention of not being a competition at all. The Film Officer for the American High Commission originally envisioned any prize-giving as a purely public event, saying, “We could give visitors buying a ticket an evaluation sheet, which is dropped in a special box at the exit. As a prize we could, perhaps, award a Silver Berlin Bear with the inscription ‘Film Festival Berlin 1951’.”

 

But this didn’t last long. By 1955, the big name international juries were in and by 1957 the audience awards were out. And right from the beginning, backed by the film industries of the Allied Powers, the allure of international glamour was in full swing.

 

The energy of the 60s brought out both new directions in film and a heating up of the East-West political situation, and the Competition spread its net to reflect these changes in its selection. This exploded in 1970, when the cold war controversy over the film “OK” by Michael Verhoeven literally shut down the Competition for that year. The resulting turmoil gave birth to the Forum the following year, allowing more radical cinema its own platform and solidifying the Competition as the place for the big high profile productions.

 

The original Festival had also developed a market element, which was briefly spun out into a parallel event called the “Trade Fair for Film, Tele- and Audio-Vision”. Despite some tension between the two fractions - the market feeling that the festival should be secondary to their commercial concerns - by the time of the Festival’s move to the Cine Center in ‘73, the market was once again an integrated part, first as the Film Messe, and then, as we know it today, The European Film Market.

 

Since then, the two parts have worked in tandem. The Competition, attracting the international media and attention, has helped make the Market an increasingly important meeting place for international film business, which in turn makes the Competition a more desirable place to launch a film commercially. And although the audience is no longer awarding the prizes, Berlin’s reputation as, first and foremost, a “city festival” has its tangible effect on the Market floor. Karin Hoffinger of the Programme Organisation says, “There’s nothing like seeing the reaction of 1600 people at a gala screening to give a film the market buzz.”

 

“The relation between the Market and the Competition has always been a straight course,” observes Thomas Hailer, Programme Manager of the Berlinale, “and this will remain constant in the future as well. Organic contacts that have grown and developed over the years with distribution companies and producers are nurtured in both the Competition and the Market so you don’t divide the festival - what’s good for the Market is good for the Competition and to have a good, strong selection in the Competition is good for the Market.”

 

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