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The Berlin Berlin Film Festival has rescinded opening ceremony invitations to Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party following widespread outcry from the German industry.
Festival sources tell us the decision was finalized today by Berlinale co-heads Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek. Emails have just gone out to staff.
The decision was made following discussions with German Culture Minister Claudia Roth, who sources told us was against the move. We hear the decision was largely influenced by the growing number of industry members who had said they would not attend the opening with AfD representatives present.
The festival was set to publish an official letter later this afternoon but moved up its announcement by a few hours after hearing that we were about to publish.
The industry outcry over the AfD’s presence at the Berlinale opening ceremony has been extensive. Just today, an alliance of film trade organizations, including the German Film Academy and unions representing producers and writers, published a new open letter in protest against the invitation.
“Our concern is the reputation of our industry and our country,” the letter said of the invites. “We stand for a diverse society and artistic freedom. The officials of this party are therefore not welcome at our events.”
The group called for all bureaucratic processes that led to the AfD being invited to the Berlinale opening ceremony to be “reviewed and changed.”
“We have a duty to make it clear that ethnic-nationalist ideology is incompatible with our free-democratic basic order,” the letter reads.
News of the AfD’s invitation was first reported on by us following a separate open letter signed by more than 200 industry professionals, including actors, directors, producers, writers, programmers, educators, journalists, and students, in which they expressed “outrage” over the invitations. That original open letter has since been taken down over fear of reprisal against its organizers, we’re told by sources.
The Wave and Das Boot series director Dennis Gansel became the most prominent voice in the German industry to call out the festival’s invitation. Organizers claimed that it was festival protocol to invite democratically elected members of parliament to the opening ceremony.
We revealed that protests were due to take place at the opening ceremony, while one Berlinale Talent member cancelled his presence at the festival and multiple German celebrities took to social media to express anger at the invitations.
The far-right AfD is currently polling second in Germany and there are fears from many in the industry that the party could sweep local and European elections this summer.
The party’s ideology has been classified as anti-Islam, anti-immigration, German nationalist, Eurosceptic and denying of human-caused climate change. Gläser, one of the AfD politicians invited to the Berlinale opening, previously compared Winston Churchill to Adolf Hitler, describing the former as a “warlord” and a “war-criminal”.
Over the last few weeks, hundreds of thousands of Germans have hit the streets in protest against the party, calling for it to be banned after it was uncovered by investigative outlet Correctiv that senior AfD members had discussed a plot to deport asylum-seekers and German citizens of foreign origin en masse if they came to power.
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