The title of this blog entry says it all — I’m freezing my gonads off here at the 62nd Berlinale. After a freezing experience at Sundance with the YOMYOMF crew, I guess I was cursed to continue onward on my own through my festival gypsy trip to another freezing place. With temperatures clocking in the mid-teens Fahrenheit, and short, brisk walks through the icy streets that will have the tip of your nose form icicles, the outside elements just compel you to stay indoors and sit through foreign film fare in toasty theaters.

Inside the Martin Gropius Bau, the film market of the Berlinale.

I’ve already stayed through the first half of the Festival and have a few more days to go. My days mostly consist of film screenings, as well as meetings with film sales agents, distributors, and filmmakers prospecting on what I can get for my festivals but also to track what’s coming out for the rest of the year at the various film markets and major festivals for the rest of 2012. Usually it’s over some brautwurst or some kind of pork knuckle dish with dumplings, but even that takes a toll on the system (it still amazes me to see little office girls eat like that everyday. Kind of warms my cockles but I digress).

I’ll keep this first Berlinale report short and highlight a few films that have caught my eye. Hopefully, they’ll be playing at a film festival near you or end up on home video at the end of the year.

IRON SKYThis was really my most anticipated film at the Festival. A crowd-funded, DIY sci-fi B-movie about Nazis from the dark side of the Moon who prepare for an Earth invasion in 2018 is a film project that I’ve been reading about for years. Four million euros later, the film is finally done and world premieres here, right next to Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall. And what did I think of IRON SKY? It was a lot of fun, with biting commentary on a Sarah Palin-esque president who is running for  a second term and just needs a war to fuel her re-election campaign. Plus, you have Udo Kier as the new Fuhrer, amazing special effects, and Nazi schtick every other minute that would make Mel Brooks proud. What’s not to love?

GOLDEN SLUMBERS

One of the most lyrical and striking documentaries from the Forum section is GOLDEN SLUMBERS, a French-Cambodian co-production about the lost Cambodian cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, where over 400 films were made and were all destroyed and eradicated under the Pol Pot regime. Only 40 remain today and the film explores the old haunts, from movie palaces, to film studios, to cafes where cinephiles used to congregate and discuss cinema. Directed by Davy Chou, a young Cambodian American who’s grandfather was one of the big wigs of the film industry, the exploration of family ties to this lost film industry and culture is at times, ghostly, but also very moving in that although many of these films no longer exist, still permeate through contemporary Khmer culture through film discourses in cafes, karaoke videos, and yes, even Youtube.

RENT-A-CAT

In a corner of the city, a young woman named Sayoko lives alone in a one-story, traditional Japanese house. However, she’s not really alone. In every part of the house is a cat, another cat, yet another cat… For some reason cats find her irresistible, so she decides to share her house with them. She passes her time tending to her house, taking care of the family altar of her beloved grandmother, and operating a rent-a-cat business through which she lends her cats to lonely people — all while enduring the taunts of her bizarre neighbor.

The latest film from quirky film director Naoko Ogigami (MEGANE and the great KAMOME DINER) returns with a truly charming tale that is so Japanese, it can only work in a Japanese film. It’s a slow burn, but the small moments are truly appreciated and even though I’m not a cat person, it made me rethink my stance on feline pets! It’s a quiet, little gem and is not bombastic, but that’s quite alright.

So, that’s part 1 of my Berlin report. I’ll blog about the rest of my fest experience here this coming weekend. In the meantime, I leave you with a poster that caught my eye at the Japan booth. Hey, it’s not always art house fare that people are hawking….