The Berlin Film Festival has appointed Tricia Tuttle, the former head of the BFI London Film Festival, to become the new director of the international film event starting in 2024.
Tuttle will succeed Carlo Chatrian and MarietteRissenbeek,who have co-led the Berlinale as artistic and executive directors since 2020 and will step down after this year’s edition when their respective mandates end.
The Berlin Film Festival is the world’s second biggest international film festival after Cannes. It also hosts the European Film Market, a crucial industry gathering where independent films are pitched and sold.
Tuttle was the director of the BFI London Film Festival during a fast-growing five-year era in which audiences nearly doubled before she stepped down after the 2022 edition. She worked as the festival’s deputy for five years before that to her predecessor Clare Stewart. She helped the festival expand outside of London with venues set up across the U.K. about one third of the festival screenings were outside London in 2021. Tuttle also worked for five years at BAFTA as film program manager.
Speaking at a press conference alongside Claudia Roth, Germany’s culture commissioner, in Berlin Tuesday, Tuttle started by apologizing for not speaking German. She added: “I will, in a year, have been attending the Berlinale for more than a decade. I have always loved that Berlin is glamorous, political and provocative. It’s a hugely important meeting place for the world’s film industry.”
Roth said: “In her interviews, [Tuttle] impressed us with her clear ideas to create a modern and team-orientated festival and timely sponsoring model. She’s the absolute best choice to lead the Berlinale. She brings 25 years of experience. The BFI London Film Festival not only had an enormous growth in audience but also importance. She made the festival more colorful and more diverse and opened it up to a wider audience.”
Tuttle added, “The Berlinale is a leader amongst A-list film festivals — welcoming and inclusive, and brimming with a breath-taking diversity of films. It’s a festival that shows cinema as a most vibrant, often magical artform, one which can transform how we see the world and how we understand each other. What an immense thrill and privilege it is to have this opportunity to lead this important festival. I look forward to a very successful Berlinale in 2024, and to joining the team afterwards.”
Tuttle was appointed by a six-member committee which included Oscar-winning director Edward Berger (“All Quiet on the Western Front”); producer Roman Paul (“Paradise Now”); Anne Leppin, the German Film Academy’s now sole managing director; actress and producer Sara Fazilat; State Secretary Florian Graf, head of the Berlin Senate Chancellery; and Roth.
While Rissenbeek decided to step down following the 2024 edition, Chatrian was not given the opportunity to serve a second mandate by the governing body of the Berlinale, the Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes.
Explaining the decision to set a new leadership, Roth she said wished to see the festival be led and represented by one person instead of having a dual leadership.
More than 400 filmmakers and talents, among them Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Béla Tarr, Olivier Assayas, Kirsten Stewart and Margarethe von Trotta, signed a petition to protest against the culture commissioner’s decision and demand a prolongation of Chatrian’s contract.
There were no questions or comments about the controversy surrounding the departure of Chatrian during the upbeat 30-minute press conference. Instead, Tuttle offered a confident forward-looking outline for what she on several occasions called one of the world’s most important festivals. She sounded genuinely excited about opportunities being created by changes shaking the film industry and festival circuits rather than being frightened by them.
“The last few years have been challenging for every festival,” she said. “The challenges that Berlin face are not unique. I’m really looking forward to it. I’m not daunted about moving to Berlin at all. I’m very excited about it. It’s really an enriching experience. It’s a great city. I love this city.”
Tuttle said when she left the London Film Festival that 10 years working there had been enough. But she did not want to make a prediction of how long she wanted to stay in charge in Berlin.
“I didn’t say I was spent creatively after 10 years in London,” she said. “I just said that 10 years at a festival was a long time to be there. I do believe that no cultural leader should stay in a role forever. There should be renewal.”
She said she has known that she got the Berlin job for “a few weeks”.
She said it was too soon for her to comment on specific changes she might be making and that she would “invisible and shadowing” the current leadership at the 2024 Berlinale. But she did offer: “I’m passionate about bringing the best established filmmakers but also underrepresented voices.”
Roth did make some comments about the size of the 2024 budget. She said that it was still provisional but that the government expects to contribute €12.6 million to the Berlinale budget. “It’s a mistake to think the Berlinale will be hit hard by cost-cutting,” she said.
She added that the mayor of the city-state of Berlin had indicated to her that the city government would raise its contribution considerably to about €2 million. “The mayor knows the value of the Berlinale and for what it does for the image of Berlin,” she said. “The mayor said he would raise the budget. There’s a clear desire to do that.”
As announced on Monday, this year’s Berlin Film Festival jury will be presided over by Lupita Nyong’o, the Oscar-winning Kenyan-Mexican actor and filmmaker. The 74th edition will run Feb. 15-25.
