Words of Mouth: A Film Character's Journey in Writing
Words of Mouth: A Film Character's Journey in Writing
- Date
- Feb 18th 2024
- With
- Nele Wohlatz, Meryam Joobeur, Nora Fingscheidt moderated by Rabih El-Khoury
More than 100 Berlinale Talents alumni have flocked back to Berlin this year to unveil their new projects at the festival, and we are thrilled to have gathered three writer-director alumnae whose voices are among the most intriguing in contemporary cinema. Meryam Joobeur ("Who Do I Belong To", Competition) joins Nora Fingscheidt ("The Outrun", Panorama) and Nele Wohlatz ("Sleep With Your Eyes Open", Encounters) for a thought-provoking chat around their individual and shared approaches to research and the development of stories and fictional characters out of people's real life experiences. Multi-awarded directors with a Silver Bear and Oscar nods among their many accolades, the three will invite us to a unique behind-the-scenes look at how a filmmaker’s language, tone, and grammar develop and evolve from film to film - and word to word.
Nele Wohlatz
The filmmaker was born in Germany in 1982 and studied scenography and philosophy at the University of Applied Arts in Karlsruhe and film at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, where she lived for 12 years. Her films have screened at festivals including Locarno, Rotterdam, the Viennale, Mar del Plata International Film Festival and at institutions including the Lincoln Center and MoMA in New York. Her debut feature film "El futuro perfecto" won multiple awards and was selected by over 70 international film festivals.
© Fer Valente
Meryam Joobeur
Meryam Joobeur is a Tunisian-Canadian filmmaker. Her debut feature "Mé el Aïn" premiered in Competition at the 2024 Berlinale, winning 12 awards, including Best Director at HKIFF and the Grand Prize at Taipei IFF. Her short "Brotherhood" (2018) won Best Canadian Short at TIFF, was Oscar-nominated, and received 78 awards. She previously directed "Gods, Weeds and Revolutions" (2012) and "Born in the Maelstrom" (2017). She is also an alumna of the Berlinale Talents Lab from the 2015 edition.
© Simone Sapia
Nora Fingscheidt
Born in Braunschweig, Germany in 1983, she grew up in Germany and Argentina. She was involved in setting up the self-organised film school, filmArche. From 2008 to 2017, she studied directing at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg. Her debut feature “Systemsprenger” participated in the Berlinale Competition in 2019 and won the Alfred Bauer Award. The film was a national box office success and received eight German film awards and several international awards. In 2020, she made her first English-language feature, “The Unforgivable,” with Sandra Bullock in the main role.
Rabih El-Khoury
Rabih El-Khoury has been working with the Metropolis Association as administrator, then as Managing Director and is today a member of its administrative board. He worked for the cultural association Beirut DC for the promotion of Arab Cinema as general coordinator The Beirut Cinema Days. He served as Programme Manager of Talents Beirut, curated the Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, and worked as Diversity Manager at DFF. He currently curates the SAFAR Film Festival of the Arab British Center in the UK, Arab Cinema Week for Cinema Akil in Dubai, is a programmer at Alfilm, and collaborates with AFRIKAMERA in Berlin.