It is February in Berlin and outside the sky is filled with fast-moving grey clouds that bring us sometimes-slushy rain. I am unemployed and officially penniless, having spent a substantial part of Monday demonstrating to the state of Berlin that I have no resources whatsoever. Going on a Berlinale film-viewing spree may not seem like the most logical response to my situation. But hey, those who never leave their studio apartments are destined to go insane. And until the weather turns in April, and sitting by the canal with a book becomes feasible, the Berlinale is just about as good a distraction as this city has to offer.

The festival actually started last Thursday, but I personally kicked off my own Berlinale experience last night at the Berlinale Shorts awards ceremony. I discovered it by accident last year, and although I am no hardened movie industry professional, or veteran Berlinale attendee, I rather suspect that this event is one of the secret highlights of the entire festival.

The first hour is taken up with presentations. The presenter, one of these assembly line German presenters, is tall and skinny and thirty something and vaguely cheesy. He speaks with English that almost always hits the mark, but is peppered with German favourite words like ‚crazy’. He repeats over and over again that the event is the “craziest“ of the Berlinale and it is all slightly incongruous. I resist the urge to curl up in my seat in vague embarrassment.

Then comes the jury, and a few stilted interviews later we have the honourable mentions. The honourable mentions last year were extremely memorable for the fact that the recipient of one of these, a shocked, fresh faced Irish animator essentially tried to convince the jury that they couldn’t possibly mean him, that he had just done it for fun, that they had made a mistake. It was very touching. This year provided none of that drama and the German recipients of the special mention observed the German customs of exchanging few words and many handshakes. On to the real prizes.

The first award of the evening is a nomination to, I think, the European Film Awards and a British gentleman shambles on stage to present it.  A sheet of paper is stuck to the back of his suit jacket as he walks across the stage, a childish joke of some sort and he refuses the presenter’s attempts to interview him centre stage, choosing instead to stand behind the podium. He proceeds in rambling style to tell us about the 100-year-old director he has just had dinner with. This man, he states, did not go to Hollywood, because back then there was no Hollywood. The message: go European cinema. The subtext: a number of bottles of wine may have been shared over dinner. Whatever, this man is a loose canon.

Mr ‘Crazy’, our presenter, tries to bring order, and attempts to start the interview. He starts asking a question. Mr Loose Canon upends him by completing the question, which he has apparently written out in advance and reading his answer from a page in front of him. He proceeds to ask and answer the next two questions himself, without any assistance from the presenter before turning to him and asking ‘Is that all?’.  Floundering , the presenter asks a question he has clearly just pulled together from the fragments of his brain, wonders ‘what can the winner expect’. Loose canon answers simply, with drunken candour, that the winner can expect to go the ceremony in the German city of Essen, have their film shown, make contacts, and that they will have something to add to their CV. And with that, prize is presented to a German woman, who thanks the Jury in stilted English. The Loose Canon then flourishes off the stage.

An unremarkable woman from the DAAD, the German academic exchange service comes to present their prize, which will bring the winner to Berlin and cover 2,200€ worth of living expenses but no money for actual filmmaking. The winner, a young Cuban woman, is quite remarkable. Accepting the prize, she speaks through a translator. I am more or less surrounded by speakers of Spanish, and they clap as she speaks. The rest of us clap 30 seconds or so later and it is somewhat off-putting. I am surprised at one juncture to realise that the clapping I had heard 30 seconds previously was at her statement that she had had a miscarriage during the production and wonder, how do you clap at a miscarriage?

We move on to the silver bear award, the jury prize. It is won by an English man who is inarticulate and seems to be wearing ‘Monday evening down the pub for the quiz’ style clothes. My Italian companion muses under his breath as to why one would dress like that, in pyjamas as he puts it, if one expects to get a prize. He moves off stage, awkwardly posing for a photo before leaving.

We have reached the climax of the evening. It is time for the presentation of the golden bear award, and two men I recognise from last year are about to make another appearance. The first is the head of the Berlinale, Dieter Kosslick, a man seemingly quite at ease with himself, impressively ‘devil may care’. In his approach. Mr ‘Crazy’, our presenter for the evening, introduces him by saying that he is the craziest of them all, and Dieter responds that he is not crazy. ‘Of course not in that way’ responds Mr Crazy. Attempting to redeem the situation, Mr Crazy poses a question. He has heard that this is Dieter’s favourite Berlinale event, why? Dieter responds by relating that he has been to 8 red carpets today alone  and has not had an opportunity to go to the toilet. Short films are short, and so afford the time necessary to do this particular bit of business. The presenter seems at a loss for what to say next and Dieter fills the time by giving a shout out of sorts to ‘Loose Canon’. He mentions that he will also be at the European Film Awards to be held in Essen, and that in Essen you can also drink. A lame joke, he admits, only comprehensible if you speak German, but hey, it is this candid approach that makes me warm to Dieter. He then announces the winner to be David O’Reilly for his film ‘Please say something’. O’Reilly is young and thin and Irish and enthusiastic and warm hearted, and states that it is not so much a triumph for him as for animation. He states that he did it out of love, made it for essentially no money, in his bedroom. He rambles and thanks and bounces off to have his photo taken. My heart is warmed, confidence in bedroom enterprises returning, dare I say it, I am inspired. It occurs to me that maybe I have seen him before. Later when I look in my program, I discover that he got a special mention at the Berlinale in 2008 and I realise ‘that was him. The guy who told the jury last year that they must have made a mistake’. Somehow this helps me to understand something about the fragility of creation. It gives me hope.  

Dieter leaves the stage and sweeps out of the auditorium to the cry of ‘off to the toilet’. We do not see him again. We settle down to watch the four prize winning films.  The golden bear winner is beautiful, touching and innovative. The silver bear winner, Jade, is silent like its creator, and seems to have cost a penny or two to make. There are overhead shots of swimming pools, and an actress with a fantastically expressive face. I am most captured by the Cuban woman’s film, The illusion. Discussing it in retrospect, we are not sure whether it is documentary or pseudo documentary, and my Italian friend finds some questionable political undercurrents I am not sure are there. Whatever the case may be I am gripped by her shots of underground elevators, darkened London landscapes shot from behind bins, Muslim women’s headscarves, the limbs of people holding on to overhead bars in the tube.  I photograph things like this myself at times, I like nothing more than riding around and observing people. I find myself gripped by this at every level. The final film, ‘The suffering of Mr Karpf. The birthday’ is an engaging character piece that I will probably not remember this time next year.

Perhaps this is why I write. So that I will not forget.

Going home is an odyssey. It is 12.30 when we get out, I have just missed a bus and another will not be along for 25 minutes. Potsdamer Platz where I am waiting is still open, gusty and cold, so I decide to take a chance and get the subway to Alexanderplatz and hope the U8 is still running. If it is not, I reason, I can always take the night bus that replaces it. I arrive at Alexanderplatz and me and others sprint through the station from the U2 line to the U8 line, hoping to catch the last one. We fail, and I wander around Alexanderplatz for 10 minutes looking for the bus stop before realising that it has been diverted due to building works. I jump on a tram to Hackescher Markt, and through the rain I find the bus stop. A hip-hop boy is already peering at the timetable and I peer also, discovering that I am in for a 15 minute wait. I retreat to hide under the arches of the Hackesche Höfe, position myself under a light and bury my face in the book I have with me ‘The rum diaries’, hoping to avoid hip-hop boy’s attention. The ride is uneventful and I eventually arrive back at Schönleinstraße station at 1:35am. The late night store is still open, so I decide to pick up a beer, go home, relax and start writing. One hour of wrestling with Bluetooth later, I give up and decide to sleep. It is 3am, it is late, and besides, there is always tomorrow.