Carlo Chatrian On His Challenging Tenure At Berlin & Plans To Make Italy’s National Cinema Museum An International Home For Indie Film — Thessaloniki

Zac Ntim
·8-min read

Fresh off his appointment as director of Italy’s National Cinema Museum, former Berlinale chief Carlo Chatrian is in Greece where he has curated an intriguing lineup of titles for the repertory sidebar at this year’s Thessaloniki Film Festival.

Grouped under the theme of ‘monsters,’ flicks handpicked by Chatrian include George Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead and Lee Chang-Dong’s Peppermint Candy. The unique mix of titles has been a hit with audiences here in Greece and best exemplifies the unique and staunchly international programming style that Chatrian says has earned him the rep as an industry “outsider.”

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“I’m really attempting to expand the vision of cinema,” he says.

From 2012 to 2018, Chatrian was the artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival. He held the same position at the Berlin Film Festival from 2020 until this year when he stepped down after the German government announced plans to scrap the festival’s short-lived dual management structure. Chatrian had led the festival alongside Mariette Rissenbeek, who ran logistics, while he programmed films. At the time, over 300 film professionals, including Martin Scorsese, Olivier Assayas, Joanna Hogg, and Radu Jude signed an open letter calling for Chatrian’s contract to be reinstated and extended.

Below, Chatrian discusses his time running the Berlinale, which he described as “challenging” but creatively and professionally rewarding. We also discuss his long-term goals for Italy’s National Cinema Museum and why he believes the film festival calendar is now “messed up.”

The Thessaloniki Film Festival runs until November 10.

DEADLINE: Carlo, do you like attending festivals? I imagine most of the time you’ve spent running them has been stressful.

CARLO CHATRIAN: As weird as it may sound, it’s not stressful. At least it wasn’t stressful to me. Of course, there is a certain degree of pressure, but it’s a pleasure. Even when I was at the peak of the pressure in Berlin I still remembered that I was doing this because I enjoyed it. And of course, it’s better when I don’t have to perform the main job. Festivals are a good place to meet with friends. They’re also a good place to discover new films, especially at a festival like this where you have a general audience. You can feel the real vibes.

DEADLINE: This collection of films you’ve curated is so diverse and that’s the thing I think about most with your programmes. They are never predictable. You don’t have a signature style.

CHATRIAN: That reflects very well what I try to convey in my programming. I’m really attempting to expand the vision of cinema. I can’t say that I like all the films in the same way, but each one conveys something to me and will hopefully do the same for the audience. This is something I learned during my time in Locarno and then in Berlin. Programming isn’t only about cherry-picking the best film. It’s like composing something. It’s quite diverse and hopefully in the end there is some coherence but the starting point is to put films together from different backgrounds.

DEADLINE: Congrats on the new job. I know you’re from Turin but why was the museum gig an interesting one for you?

CHATRIAN: Part of my decision was to come closer to my family. Berlin was great from the professional point of view. It was immensely nourishing to work with people in a very different setting from Locarno. But it was stressful on a personal level. My family stayed in Italy because of COVID. We planned to move. But then the pandemic happened. And then it was too late for my kids to move. So I was going back and forth. The second element is that the Museum of Torino is an institution that I know quite well, not only because I’m familiar with the city, but because some of the people I studied with at university now work there. So it was a reunion of sorts. Also, I like challenges. When I accepted Berlin, I didn’t speak a word of German. It was a big challenge. Locarno was the same. And this is a new challenge because running an institution is very different from composing a programme at a festival. The National Museum of Torino is one of the 10th most attended museums in Italy, a list that also includes the Uffizi. We have something like 700,000 visitors a year, which is great because I also want to programme for large audiences, which is the biggest challenge now for people who curate films.

DEADLINE: It’s such an interesting time to be moving into the museum space. I spend a lot of time now thinking about the increasingly close relationship between the gallery space and cinema. Films have been shown in the gallery context for some time but the difference now is how certain kinds of films and filmmakers have wholesale left cinema for the gallery space, which is slightly worrying. 

CHATRIAN: Yes, it exists and I think we have to accept and take advantage of it. There is no harm in having a film shown in a museum or gallery as long as we can keep showing it to a collective group of people. That’s the thing that worries me. In Torino, we have three theaters that are running well but the numbers aren’t comparable to those visiting the wider museum. One of my goals is to bridge some of that audience. Maybe there is an opportunity there.

DEADLINE: Are you interested in raising the museum’s profile?

CHATRIAN: I wish to make the museum a home for people who care about cinema. I don’t know if that is related to making it bigger. In my presentation to the museum board, I said there are two things I can bring. One of those is the international side. The museum is already well attended. We can expand a bit but not that much. It’s already at 700,000 visitors. But to make it more well known, that’s something we can do. The second thing relates to independent filmmaking, which is not in danger but is shifting. I saw that in Berlin, the pressure from the market is greater, even for established filmmakers who have to try harder to make their films. The museum can’t do much about that. But maybe we can build a home for independent cinema like the Cinematheque in Paris or MoMA and Lincoln Centre in New York. A home away from the pressure of festivals.

DEADLINE: How do you look back at your Berlin tenure?

CHATRIAN: I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity I was given. It was a challenging time. They were tough times because of the pandemic. And the time of the year Berlin takes place is not the easiest. We narrowed down the number of films from 460 to 240 and kept the same number of tickets sold, which was my biggest goal. We gave a major platform to filmmakers that are taking risks. Dahomey is a good example, so are the films of Raju Jude. Maybe this was too provocative but maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know. But I grabbed the opportunity to show what we can do with films. If you look back at the history of festivals, the risks that were taken are something that I have always admired. I still consider myself an outsider. So, in the end, I don’t care if people said Berlin was becoming too narrow. The end goal was always to support filmmakers. And when I look back, I’m proud that we opened a new avenue for different filmmakers.

DEADLINE: Why do you think of yourself as an outsider?

CHATRIAN: Because the festival circuit is small. I try to put a lot of effort into keeping the market going. I understand that the market needs a safe bet. You invest a lot of money. To bring a big film to Berlin, which is cheaper than bringing it to Cannes or Venice, still costs a lot of money for a company. So if it’s not rewarding, why would they bring their films? So you have to offer an attractive platform to the companies. So these bigger films, some of which are great, are the projects that keep the market moving. But at the same time, and I say this without an ounce of criticism against my colleagues, sometimes those films are the only goal. I wanted to try and find a better balance.

DEADLINE: How did you feel after the open letter in defense of your position was published? There were over 300 signatures, including people like Martin Scorsese. 

CHATRIAN: I was overwhelmed. I didn’t expect the letter to appear. There were even some filmmakers whose films I had rejected over the years. It definitely made things a little more complicated in my last year because it raised the attention on the festival, but maybe that also helped the festival. I don’t know what the next edition will look like, but it’s not about people. What’s relevant in that letter is the defense of the artistic director’s job, which is a distinct role that means something in our field. I don’t know if the letter helped but it definitely put pressure on the right people.

DEADLINE: Berlin is such a political festival. A certain level of government bureaucracy seems to seep into the festival’s workings. Why is that?

CHATRIAN: It’s related to the cultural patterns. We shouldn’t forget that Berlin is the only one among the three big festivals held in a capital city. We are next door to the Minister of Culture. Berlin is also a very political city, which is great, but at the same time puts a lot of pressure on you. The other element is that the festival is basically owned by the government, which is maybe not the best structure.

DEADLINE: What is your view on the festival calendar moving forward? 

CHATRIAN: The festival calendar is messed up because there is a high season and a very low season. But maybe things will change. I don’t think the solution is to move every festival to the fall. I can’t answer for others but what we did at Berlin was take advantage of not being in the awards season. This gave us more freedom to show other kinds of movies and work differently. We gave room to series, for example. We did galas but in a different way. I think the question is also what is the purpose of a film festival? For the last 20 years, it was to support theatrical distribution. The question is what does theatrical distribution look like now?

DEADLINE: There are some rumors around the circuit that you’re being prepped for the top job at Venice. Have you heard that rumor? What do you think?  

CHATRIAN: I’m in Torino. I’m running a museum. It’s a new challenge and I really want to enjoy that and think about that. I’m not thinking about anything else.

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