Two star members of the Berlin Film Festival\u2019s jury on Thursday criticised a decision to withdraw invitations to hard-right politicians, with one suggesting the event could have broadened the lawmakers\u2019 horizons.Five members of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party were invited to the opening ceremony on Thursday evening alongside other elected politicians.But organisers withdrew the invites last week amid a nationwide uproar after it emerged members of the party had discussed deportations of ethnic minorities at a secret meeting.German director Christian Petzold, whose film \u201cAfire\u201d won the festival\u2019s Grand Jury Prize last year, and Italian actor Jasmine Trinca both said the decision was not conducive to open discussion.\u201cWe are not cowards,\u201d Petzold told journalists at a news conference presenting the jury. \u201cIf we can\u2019t stand five members of the AfD as part of the audience, we will lose our fight.\u201dTrinca, whose TV series \u201cSupersex\u201d about porn star Rocco Siffredi will show at the fest, said cinema had the power to change people\u2019s perspectives.The five politicians could have sat in the audience, watched the \u201cworks of cinema chosen by the Berlinale to represent this time and moment in life\u201d, and broadened their perspectives, Trinca said.Katrin Brinker, the AfD\u2019s leader in Berlin who had her invitation cancelled, earlier said the decision showed the festival as bowing to pressure from cultural activists.\u201cIt marginalises, stigmatises and denies democratically elected representatives of the AfD the same rights that it grants to others,\u201d she said in a video on her Facebook page.The AfD is an anti-immigrant party that has portrayed itself as a steward of traditional German culture and a voice for those who feel ignored by the political class.Current affairs reared their head again at the press conference when the sound of an air raid siren blared from the phone of jury member and Ukrainian author Oksana Zabuzhko to signal the end of Russia\u2019s most recent round of missile attacks.Jury president Lupita Nyong\u2019o, the Mexican-Kenyan star of \u201cBlack Panther\u201d and \u201c12 Years A Slave\u201d, tried to steer the conversation back to cinema.\u201cI\u2019m a foreigner here. I don\u2019t know the ins and outs of the political situation here. I\u2019m glad I don\u2019t have to answer that question. I\u2019m glad I don\u2019t have to be in that position,\u201d she said when asked about the AfD invites.And Petzold relented. \u201cWhen artists talk about Gaza at a press conference, then about Ukraine, then about five AfD fellas, then at some point I think to myself, we\u2019re here to watch films,\u201d he said.(Reuters)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Berlin Film Festival’s jury members criticized the decision to withdraw invitations to hard-right politicians from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The politicians were initially invited to the opening ceremony but had their invites withdrawn after it was revealed that they had discussed deportations of ethnic minorities at a secret meeting. The jury members, including German director Christian Petzold and Italian actor Jasmine Trinca, argued that the decision hindered open discussion and that cinema has the power to change people’s perspectives. The AfD party criticized the decision, claiming that it marginalized and stigmatized democratically elected representatives. The jury members also faced questions about current affairs, including Russia’s missile attacks, but tried to steer the conversation back to cinema.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[506,851,705,303,3,249,704,145,576,466,19,17,18],"class_list":["post-3084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyprus","tag-afd","tag-berlinale","tag-cinema","tag-culture","tag-cyprus","tag-facebook","tag-films","tag-gaza","tag-germany","tag-missile","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n