Talents Tanks
The Talents Tanks are Berlinale Talents’ inspiring design thinking format, created to encourage our Talents to reflect on some of the industry’s most pressing issues under the banner “A Film Community of the Many.”
Established as an informal space for Talents to reflect on some of the most pressing issues facing the industry, Talents Tanks encourages filmmakers to think critically about their capacity to bring about sustainable change through their practice.
Talents meet for a “check-in” on Sunday and then for “check-out” on Thursday, the Summit’s last day. Group discussions around issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion alternate with more unconventional approaches. Among the activities is a meditation session, journaling exercises that will draw from the concept of “deep listening” and the way light and electricity have helped shaping human language, and finally moving and speaking exercises that will invite the Talents to experiment with words and sounds as a way to forge new bonds.
Coming together from over 68 countries and 14 film disciplines, balanced in genders and diverse in their cultural backgrounds, the 200 Talents offer a great variety of voices to form the basis of all discussions.
The talent tanks allowed me (and I'm sure most people) the ability to be vulnerable with complete strangers. The fact that we all came from similar levels of experience and had similar levels of insecurity about our own artistic pathways allowed us to talk candidly about what we hope for the future of cinema. Surviving as an artist can be scary but knowing that there are so many others in the same position who are unrelenting in their pursuit of image making, while also trying to sustain yourself is encouraging.Talent, 2023
I feel connected and relaxed with my co-Talents. In general, I feel like being an artist is a tough job, yet the Talents Tanks were able to give us a moment to relieve our brains and relate to one another as storytellers. We realised how many similarities we have despite our cultural differences.Talent, 2023
Following the Talents Tanks in 2023, Berlinale Talents Programme Manager Florian Weghorn and former Project Manager Christine Tröstrum drew once again positive feedback:
"There is great agreement on the relevance of fair, diverse and ecologically considerate working methods in the crews as well as in artistic freedom in cinematic storytelling. But we experienced a new urgency and also sensitivity among the Talents to search for the deeper sources and resources that fuel these changes. Far beyond being a only a buzz word, the current generation of filmmakers offers truly sustainable solutions and demands to be able to take creative responsibility and at eye level with the big players, funders and institutions. As a bridge builder and door opener, Berlinale Talents will therefore continue to connect its community of almost 10,000 alumni with each other and the industry via further collective dialogue formats also throughout the year."