Talk:Berlin International Film Festival

Too Many Pictures
The gallery section seems to have have too many pictures, should it be tagged as such? FruitDefence (talk) 19:28, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Year given
The years given in the list are the years of the ceremonies. Sometimes a winner film is of the same year (I assume because it premieres in the Festival) but many of the films are of the previous year. Is it correct that each award is given for the previous year's films, like in Academy awards? I ask because I am including Golden Bear awards along with the other awards in the years in film (as in 1996 in film). In the other awards the ceremony is actually takes place in the next year. Should the same be done with the Berlin awards? Hoverfish 21:07, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It depends. The festival takes place in Febuary, so most films that are shown were made the previous year. But some are also finished shortly before the festival, and are therefore from the same year in which the ceremony is held. I hope that helps! Kayanna89 (talk) 19:32, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Silver Bear chart
Using info at the Berlin festival's website, I started a chart for Silver Bear winners for Best Director, Actress & Actor (I gave up trying to figure out the differences among the various Jury awards, some of which seem to change meaning over the years).

I don't know if there's a way to add a subpage to an article in order to work on time-consuming charts, so I'm going to put it here and if it needs to be moved, then by all means move it. I'm not sure how to split the secondary columns (there are co-winners for some years in some categories), so others more skilled in this stuff will have to handle that kind of thing. (note: there are more entries than needed, so best to work backward from most recent winners) RoyBatty42 01:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

2007
The entry for Hanro Smitsman needs checking. I've provided a citation, but he more I read it the more it confuses me! Fiddle Faddle (talk) 16:53, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

"Festival Programme" section
This has been inserted twice now by users. Most of it is substantively the same as the descriptions available at http://internationalfilmfestivals.suite101.com/article.cfm/berlinale_2010. It is insufficient merely to erase a few words here and there, or to change a single sentence amidst a block of text. The descriptions should be properly re-written so as to comply with Wikipedia's policies on citing sources and plagiarism. This is clearly outlined in the plagiarism policy page, in which it is stated that instances of plagiarism - whether intentional or not - can be remedied by by "rewriting text completely into your own words". It is further outlined in Wikipedia's discussion of close paraphrasing. The marginal edits made to the original Suite 101 article are minimal and hence do not meet the threshold of sufficient rephrasing. If the person who copy-pasted the sections from the Suite 101 website is in fact the original author, they should donate the copyrighted material in accordance with Wikipedia procedures. Cyril Washbrook (talk) 04:52, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I reworded some of the sentences from the section "Festival Programme" added by anonymous users. However I didn't know the information is from suite101.com. I think we could keep the basic structure and the main point of the section (list the different programs of the festival, i.e. "Competition", "Panorama", "Generation", etc.), but re-remove the content; still, a brief explanation of the programs would be needed.--TheLeopard (talk) 05:32, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, the information is definitely useful, and I agree with you that the basic structure is worth continuing. The Berlinale website includes a rundown of each individual category, so I think we can start over with the descriptions while keeping the structure. (In this case, there isn't an issue with using a self-published source.) I'll have a shot at rewriting the section. Cyril Washbrook (talk) 08:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've now rewritten the section based on the information supplied in the Berlinale's publicity material. If there are any further issues with the rewrite, feel free to jump in. Cyril Washbrook (talk) 09:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

History section
I think a History section for the main article would be nice.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.53.13.187 (talk) 00:29, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Berlinale is named NO.2 Film Festival in the world next to Cannes.

yap. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FinnishDriver (talk • contribs) 09:20, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I rewrote the entire history section (referencing the Berlinale's own archives) to lose the unwieldy focus on the most recent years and to give a basic overview of developments since 1951, including a brief overview of all the festival directors to date (Bauer, Donner, de Hadeln and Kosslick). Mowerbyte (talk) 00:26, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Small Golden Berlin Bear
Isn't there/wasn't there a short-film award called something like "Small Golden Berlin Bear"? Le songe des chevaux sauvages seems to have won it in 1960. I don't see it in the article. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:40, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Largest?
The article states that it's the largest publicly attended film festival. However, the Toronto International Film Festival also makes the same, or similar, claim. According to its wikipedia article, total admissions were over half a million, vs. Berlinale's 487000. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DanTrent (talk • contribs) 00:22, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Alfred Bauer Award
Dozens of Wikipedia pages refer to one film or another winning the Alfred Bauer award at the Berlin International Film Festival but this article does not even mention this award, much less describe it.

Can a knowledgeable contributor provide a paragraph on this award? --Ross Fraser (talk) 02:35, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Add Black 47 to 2018 in film Wikipedia Article
I would be grateful if someone can add Black 47 to the 2018 in Film Wikipedia article. The Film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival 2018 and is due to be launched in cinemas worldwide soon. I had made a semi edit request on the talk page but there still has been no response to it. You can find the request and the details here

Berlin Film Festival
Has Berlin always been "Berlin International Film Festival"?

Was it known at some point as "Berlin Film Festival"?

Is there another festival called Berlin Film Festival?

I'm wondering because while searching for production company and distribution company websites of a 2010s feature film on the Wayback Machine, so I could add them to the films page on IMDB, I noticed that the site already listed as an "official site" on IMDB was titled "Berlin Film Festival in both the .co.uk url and the site title.

The only clickable page was the main page of the film. It contained a quote from the director (who mainly works as a stuntman) saying "It's great being at Berlin Film Festival again" and a list of the cast at the side. A few years later that information was replaced with a poster for another feature film by the same director.

I later found another dead link for the film with the films title this time, which was identical to the website titled Berlin Film Festival.

I've checked film listings of various 2010s programmes on Berlinale archives, and none of them mention this 2010s feature film.

I suspect it wasn't actually shown at any Berlin Film Festival, and it was just the director making a false website to try and make the film look bigger than it was.

I've seen with quite a lot of people on IMDB over the years doing similar things to make themselves look more important, including some recognisable faces ie by claiming to have won awards that they haven't won, changing their character names, putting themselves higher in the cast credit order, adding false crew credits etc...

However this is the first time I've seen someone create a possible fake website.

And not only that, a .co.uk  website for a non-British film festival. Danstarr69 (talk) 08:35, 17 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure exactly what you mean, with no specific film name to look at, but it sounds dodgy to me. I'm pretty sure that there has not been another Berlin Film Festival. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:31, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Laterthanyouthink I'm on about this
 * Berlin Film Festival
 * As the "Official Site" on the film
 * Freight (2010) Danstarr69 (talk) 10:27, 18 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I haven't got to the bottom of it yet, as I have been diverted down multiple rabbit holes trying to sort out other issues with the article, but I assume that it is this film, on DVD here? I'll have another look tomorrow, but can't see any connection with this festival as yet. I did come across the Berlin Independent Film Festival though. But the way it's worded is ambiguous - perhaps those two actors are there, but not his film? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 12:24, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Laterthanyouthink yes, that's why I linked the film's IMDB page.
 * I've got a couple of Wayback Machine link additions and corrections currently pending, which will no doubt have their descriptions changed by the clueless IMDB admins, to just say "Wayback," "Wayback Machine" or "Archive" rather than the name of the websites themselves, so I'll have to correct them again.
 * I've now found this Hollywood Reporter link which suggests to me that they (2 executives from AV Pictures, 2 cast members, and 2 crew members per project) were at Berlinale 60th anniversary in 2010, but to sell their film to distributors, rather than have their film shown as part of the actual festival itself. They're mentioned on page 4 under AV Pictures.
 * The Hollywood Reporter - 2010 Berlin Listings
 * I'm always going down rabbit holes on IMDB...
 * Every single time I update the cast, crew, companies, release dates, alternative titles, countries, languages, colours, run times, genres, filming locations, official sites, videos, images, news stories etc on a production, I end up...
 * Updating loads of random related productions from the same people/companies/locations.
 * Finding countless duplicate profiles which I merge and then add full names and nicknames to, so that they're easier to find in future. For example Andrew-Lee Potts (like most people with double barrelled names, or 3+ names in general) is sometimes credited as Andrew Lee Potts. Therefore I would add Andrew Lee Potts, Andrew L Potts, and Andrew L. Potts as nicknames. It also happens a lot with people who regularly abbreviate their first names ie Andy instead of Andrew, so I end up having to add even more nicknames most of the time.
 * I've largely forgotten most of the stuff I've updated in the last month, as I've done that much. I remember starting off updating a feature film set and filmed in Southampton. That lead me to add and update a lot of Bristol and Brighton-and-Hove short films. Then I added around 300 episodes of a 20 year old BBC Yorkshire documentary series (which took a long time because I had to search for the episode titles on the Wayback Machine), and updated a few of the episodes with some cast members, and a couple of producers. And I've updated a lot of productions which contain people from those few BBC documentary episodes I updated. Most of those productions include other BBC documentary/reality TV type shows (on things like British villages, towns, cities, rivers, lakes, history, architecture, theatre etc) which have barely any, if any of the cast/crew/companies added, and a lot of the episodes missing. Most of those BBC documentary shows on IMDB are basically empty, and most of the BBC crew members have multiple duplicate profiles, which I'll be updating and merging if I haven't done so already. Danstarr69 (talk) 22:54, 18 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I missed the imdb link before as it was just before your signature and my eye skimmed past it.
 * Well, that led to another rabbit hole, trying to work out who's who for Zsolt Nagy (adding to a DAB page and other pages here, and sending a merge submission to IMDb - although they also several others who may well be the same man). Yes, I sometimes send updates in to IMDb but some of them are rather unsatisfactorily dealt with, I find. And I mostly work on wiki.
 * Seeing your Berlin listings document makes me think that perhaps the film was featured in the European Film Market section, rather than entered for competition? Anyway I will plod on with expanding the Berlinale article and helping to highlight the various other film festivals in the city along the way. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:12, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Laterthanyouthink I update IMDB 5-7 days a week, whereas I only update Wikipedia occasionally.
 * I edited  Quora for a couple of years. I mainly focused on trying to sort out the hierarchy of British topics (which is like Quoras equivalent of Wikipedia's categories) on things like films, production companies, TV networks, TV channels, TV shows, TV genres, football leagues, football teams, rugby league leagues, rugby league teams, regions, counties, cities, towns etc. Some topics are locked, so when I needed those corrected, I would go to one of the two or three groups with former admins who still had admin privileges to fix them for me, as Quora didn't have a contact or help section. When I wasn't sorting out the topics I would mainly be correcting non-Brits who think that all ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, UKTV, Sky etc shows are BBC or American shows. There was also an American admin going around on a daily basis creating pointless topic which weren't needed, most of which contained the word "specific" (if I remember correctly) but no description to say what exactly is so "specific" about them ie. "Specific British TV Shows."
 * I eventually stopped editing Quora after getting sick of the admin creating pointless topics, the bots constantly fighting with themselves reverting corrections, the admin groups becoming quiet, and the updates to make the website better making the website worse.
 * I then started focusing more on editing Wikipedia. However I quickly cut down as it takes forever to create an article, as you have to have references for everything, plus I like to put the references in some type of order ie by date. I also got a lot of my referenced additions to British things (mainly film and TV related) removed by Americans at a later date.
 * That's when I moved to IMDB which is miles better imo. Why? Because 99% of things can be added without proof, plus they're much harder to be removed once they're added. You need proof (usually screenshots of the credits) to correct or delete things obviously however. The only things I can think of which I occasionally have problems with are adding Dates of Birth using references to their social media pages as proof (which their guidelines say are allowed to be used as proof), and adding Movie Connections to link productions which are connected in some way (which have been declined a lot in the few occasions I've actually added some).
 * There would also be problems with Title Corrections (as they'd usually keep the incorrect title as the "original title"), and Name Additions (for people like rappers with weird names which IMDB formatting didn't allow), however they seem to have been fixed finally a few months ago as now they just keep the "incorrect title" as a "display title" so it can be easily rectified, and names which contained things like capital letters or numbers in the middle of them, IMDB seems to be accepting now.
 * That former problem with name additions was proven even more just a few days ago, when I needed to add a lot of credits for professional video game players to a documentary. I found out the real names for some of them which I added with their online credited names as "as" attributes, however most of them I only had the names which they were credited by, so I had to add them as they were, and all of them were accepted no problem. Just like rappers, most of those gamers had names which contained capital letters and numbers in their names, just like my Wikpedia name Danstarr69. Danstarr69 (talk) 04:31, 19 September 2022 (UTC)