3.3 (Sat) 13:00-14:30 The Siren of Faso Fani

3.3 (Sat) 15:00-16:30 Tito’s Glasses

3.3 (Sat) 18:00-20:00 Alphabet

3.4 (Sun) 13:00-14:30 Baden Baden

3.4 (Sun) 15:00-16:30 Babai

3.4 (Sun) 18:00-19:20 Have a Nice Day

The Siren of Faso Fani

Director: Michel K. Zongo

Genre: Documentary

Duration: 90 minutes

Selected for the Forum section at the 65th Berlinale

In 2001 the government of Burkina Faso finished liquidating the Faso Fani textile factory in Koudougou, the country’s third largest city. This was the inevitable endpoint of a process that began in the early 1990s, when the Burkinabe government agreed to implement Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) in return for loans provided by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Among other stipulations, the SAPs required the privatization of many state-owned companies, and the Faso Fani factory, once the pride of Koudougou, was forced to lay off most of its workers. Michel K. Zongo’s 2015 documentary, La Sirène de Faso Fani, explores the impact of the factory’s closure on its former employees.

Tito’s Glasses

Director: Regina Schilling

Genre: Documentary

Duration: 90 minutes

Selected for the LOLA program at the 65th Berlinale

Adriana Altaras comes from a country that no longer exists: Yugoslavia. The daughter of Jewish partisans who fought for Tito and who began a new life in post-war Germany, this is the tale of her “stressful family.” Today she is a director, actor, writer, mother of two children, and wife of a German Catholic. As unusual as Adriana’s family life may seem at first glance, it is exemplary for most of the post-war generation of children—despite full lives, they are haunted by their parents’ pasts, and obsessed with their own roots.

Alphabet

Director: Erwin Wagenhofer

Genre: Documentary

Duration: 113 minutes

Selected for “Docs Spotlights” at the 64th Berlinale

98% of all children are born gifted, but as soon as they enter school, the number drops to 2%. “Performance” has become the criterion of all competitive societies. But the one-sided focus on technocratic learning goals and flawless reproduction of isolated knowledge makes it difficult to find new solutions without fear of failure. Erwin Wagenhofer has a radically different conception of “education,” one that is based on searching for the structures of thought underlying our obsession with “performance.” What we learn shapes our stock of knowledge, but how we learn determines our thinking.

Baden Baden

Director: Rachel Lang

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Duration: 96 minutes

Selected for the Forum section at the 66th Berlinale

When Ana finishes a job she hates as runner on a big film shoot in Belgium, she makes an impulse decision to change her plans. Over the course of a summer, during which a broken love affair briefly blossoms again and Ana's grandmother falls ill, Ana does her best to cope with life.

Babai

Director: Visar Morina

Genre: Drama

Duration: 103 minutes

Selected for the LOLA program at the 66th Berlinale

Ten-year-old Nori (Val Maloku) and his father Gezim (Astrit Kabashi) roam the streets of Kosovo selling cigarettes to eke out a living. Only a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gezim goes west to Germany in search of a new life, leaving his son behind. Desperate to reclaim some sense of stability, Nori embarks on a dangerous journey to Germany in search for his father. His tenacity, resilience, and sheer grit must be enough to guide him.

Have a Nice Day

Director: Liu Jian

Screenwriter: Liu Jian

Genre: Animation

Country: China

Language: Chinese

Duration: 77 minutes

In a city in southern China, a bag containing a million RMB draws several people with different motives into a bloody conflict. Philosophizing gangster bosses, aging hitmen, men and women struggling to survive—anyone who happens to take possession of the bag holds on for dear life. This black comedy perfectly captures the complex social realities of today’s China.