The 66th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, which will be held from Feb. 11-21, will cater to and focus on refugees, according to festival director Dieter Kosslick.
In an interview with AFP, Kosslick said that the festival would highlight the refugee crisis in several ways to encourage tolerance and integration in Germany, given the great influx of refugees it has witnessed over the past year and the wave of intolerance that has accompanied it.
In collaboration with various refugee aid organizations, the festival will give at least 1,000 free tickets to asylum seekers through a foster program, so they can attend the prestigious cinematic event.
In addition, the festival's opening night gala invitations include requests for donations to a treatment center that caters to torture survivors who have sought refuge in Germany.
And the festival's youth film sidebar section, Generation, will offer "welcome classes" to refugee children at local schools to help them understand the process of integration into a new society, as part of an existing outreach project.
The festival will also celebrate multiculturalism at this year's Berlinale Street Food Market, which will feature Middle Eastern specialties prepared by refugees to introduce the flavors of Middle Eastern culture to the festival's attendees between screenings.
Kosslick pointed out that dealing with the topics of asylum, integration and multiculturalism are nothing new for the cultural event, one of the oldest film festivals in Europe.
"Refugees have always played a role at the Berlinale, since 1951. Back then many Germans were refugees and the festival was founded to foster understanding in German society and among nations,” he said.
“We have always dealt with the refugee issue at the Berlinale. Now it’s time to understand each other, show tolerance, accept each other and show that with the films we present. We can show people how exciting and harmonious it can be to spend 10 days with migrants and people from other countries."
Many of the films selected from around the world for the festival deal with different dimensions of the refugee crisis, from its main causes to its impact on Western countries.
Moreover, many of the films that will be presented at the festival deal with the country's own troubled history, which Kosslick believes will ring true with the current social and political discourse surrounding the refugee influx.
“It is an opportunity for German society to consider our relationship with our history. None of us can imagine what the Nazi crimes really meant and what millions of refugees endured," Kosslick said.
"But you can understand what it means for someone to arrive in a cold country in November or December wearing flip-flops. The refugee influx is a great chance for us Germans to better understand our own history.”