Already in its second year, the Berlinale began presenting a retrospective programme, which the Festival's founding director Alfred Bauer used to refer to as his "favorite child." At first it was largely nostalgia based and aimed at older audiences, presenting silent films and selections of international classics.

 

In later years it refined its focus, introducing German audiences to the work of Ozu or Brazil's Cinema Nova and bringing "home" the work of German exiles like Billy Wilder and Marlene Dietrich. Under the auspices of Deutsche Kinemathek since 1977, they expanded into a wide range of lively thematic programing like 3D, Color, The Cold War, or Hollywood Mavericks; or presented directors like William Wyler, Fritz Lang, and Luis Buñuel. The result served to take film history out of the shadow of film scholarship and make it vital and contemporary - and, additionally, ever more popular with younger audiences.

 

But most significantly, the Retrospective now means a place where we experience classic cinema as it was originally meant to be seen, on a big screen with a large audience - something the proliferation of home video has been markedly eroding. Yet ironically, the DVD is actually not the adversary it seems. "A lot of the prints we show now come from material restored for a DVD - or now Blu-Ray - release," explains Retro director Rainer Rother, "This often makes our showings possible."

 

"And the retro has also become a testing ground for DVD releases and occasionally theatrical," adds Retro coordinator Connie Betz. "It offers an opportunity to see how audiences respond, and to promote the release. So these days there's a real market aspect to the Retro as well."

 

Meanwhile, the Retro has also evolved its own kind of marketplace, providing a meeting place for sharing information and making deals - attracting DVD companies, various rights holders already doing business at the EFM, alongside festival reps and people from the archive scene. This also includes representatives from major studios, who not only support the Retro with new or archival prints, but who often attend as Retro guests whether they are presenting a film or not.

 

"The Retrospective is a part of the whole package of the Berlinale," concludes Rother. "And a presence in the Retro and at the same time at the EFM is something that one only has in Berlin. When one is represented by work from the past as well as today, it stands as a continuity, binding history with what's happening now. And that's something hard to find anywhere else."

 

Read other Spotlights here