Hundreds of tickets are being organised for asylum-seekers, who will play a huge role in the next Berlin Film Festival, or Berlinale.
The 66th edition of the Berlinale is scheduled to happen from February 11 to 21, 2016. The festival will set an example of tolerance and integration in Germany by involving refugees, about a million of whom have migrated to Germany in the last year. The Berlinale has involved refugees from its inception, because the festival was launched just six years after World War II, when a cold war outpost was launched in Berlin. At the time, the festival was founded to promote an understanding of German society, since many of its people were refugees.
“We are working with refugee aid organisations on a foster programme to distribute free tickets” teaming up volunteers with asylum seekers, he said, in an interview in his modest office overlooking Berlin’s ultramodern Potsdamer Platz, the festival venue.Β Currently the plan is around 1,000 tickets but we could imagine making it more,” says festival organiser Dieter Kosslick. This year’s selection of 400 films also includes several that these people may be able to relate to, such as films on the refugee crisis.
