Integrity Interlude
A few unvarnished (and uncensored) words from Tilda Swinton, whose recent acceptance speech captures our delicate moment with sincere, unbridled integrity.
I’m sharing this as a timely lesson in artistic integrity.
Last year, the Berlinale film festival spiralled into a scandal of censorship and government overreach. Don’t worry if you weren’t paying attention or have since forgotten, it was just one more episode in our wider, long-running, pop-cultural/political show. You know, the one so consistently flavoured by the silent question of ‘what are we pretending not to know today?’
When two directors, Yuval Abraham, an Israeli, and Basel Adra, Palestinian, won the best documentary prize for their joint film ‘No Other Land,’ (which profiles the eradication of Palestinian villages in the West Bank), Germany’s minister of state for culture claimed - rather cartoonishly - that she had only clapped for one half of the duo. You can guess which half.
For a country that seems to habitually tilt on the wrong side of history, the ludicrous sound of this particular German minister’s one hand clapping could be heard all around the world. It remains one of the few comical drumbeats of blanket support for the pariah state of Israel, support which continues to make so many greedy, guilt-riven Western governments complicit in another bout of mass slaughter.
But, back to this year’s festival, which understandably, was a tough act to follow. This year there was a widespread artist boycott but also Germany’s imminent general election, which is widely tipped to ratify the return of the country’s no-longer-dormant fascistic ghost.
Thankfully, though, we have the measured eloquence of Tilda Swinton.
At times like these, speaking the unvarnished truth in the face of petrified power is a radical act. Swinton, who made a conscious decision to show up and to use her platform thusly, justified her presence, saying:
“I’m a great admirer of and have a great deal of respect for BDS and I think about it a lot… I am here today – and yesterday and tomorrow and the next day – because I decided to come. I decided it was more important for me to come. I was given, thanks to the festival, a platform which I decided in a personal moment was potentially more useful to all our causes than me not turning up. It was a personal judgment call, that I take full responsibility for”Artistic integrity is particularly elusive at a time when the taps from the funding fountain are being tightened by many of the world’s most vile wealth-hoarders.
However, anyone who refuses to capitulate to the convenience and comfort of those safeguarding our violent status quo will always have my ear, my heart, and room on these pages.
It comes as no surprise then, that Tilda’s acceptance speech (after receiving the honorary lifetime achievement award) was conveniently cut down to comfortable size across most media outlets.
It is such a gem, though, so timely and true, that I wanted to share it with you all - in full - here:
It’s important.
Dear fellow humans…
Here’s one of the best things that can happen to a young person curious for the world - and how to live a life in it… they can find themselves here at the Berlinale.
When I first came to this festival, I was 25 and looking for my life, looking for the world, and signs of human life there. How I might take my place among it.
On the hunt for amazement, for solidarity, and connection.
And I can say I found it all right here, in one fell swoop.
And I've never been without it since.
Forty years of the comradeship and friendship of filmmakers from around the planet. The faithful community of the global cinema audience. And, above all, the boundary-less possibilities of filmmaking itself - and all the fun of the fair to be had there.
When you honour me, you honour all the above.
But I make films as a film fan first and foremost.
And here's why, here's what never changes. And what, over the next 10 days, you will have spread before you; a feast for the heart, a tonic for the soul.
The dark.
The quietness.
The liberty of sound.
The uninterrupted voice.
The open invitation to reverie.
Being among a whole mess of humanity and trusting that you might actually feel the same as each other, for even an instant.
The leap of faith.
The smoke and mirrors.
The beam of light.
And, since this matters too, the lifelong friendships struck up in juries, and screenings, and breakfast buffets, and nightclubs, and coffee queues, and on street corners: the Berlinale.
And through them, the growing possibility of seeing more than one side of things.
The sensation of feeling yourself change.
Feeling yourself challenged, tested.
Feeling yourself safer, braver.
Taking your values between finger and thumb and examining them there.
Recognitions and wheels turning underwater, and deep bells ringing.
Because there's the magic of details suspended in space available to all humans. The miracle of timelessness available to all humans. The unbeatable beauty of the earth. The actual value of spoken language. The actual value of unspoken language. The grace and power of the unwatched face. The vulnerability and valiance of human life being lived, always and everywhere and everywhen.
The downright usefulness of the wild, widescreen.
And so so so so so so many films.
I'm so happy it's snowing today. It could be 1986. It used to snow every year here. My first Berlinale, we traipsed snow with us on our boots into the Zoo Palast. Werner Schroeter was showing at the Delphi and ‘the teddies’ were inaugurated.
A wall was still up and we used to make it our business to mission over to the East in search of rare vinyl and a wider view. But our minds were focused on that boundarylessness in here - up there.
We like to think we dignify the cinema we made with our dissidence, our resistance, and our determination to find a communion to have faith in.
Here's what occurred to us back then:
We can do better as human beings - nothing surer.
And on our way, we can do worse than foraging in the cinema - in art - for the bread crumbs through the forest, to understand exactly how.
Now - as then - in the present when it is perhaps never been more pressing to consider, to weigh with reverence and maturity, what sovereignty means to humans.
What history and legacy and an evolved culture might be worth to our sense of ourselves.
And even, what being human means, and is worth - at all.
We can head for the great independent state of cinema, and rest there. An unlimited realm innately inclusive. Immune to efforts of occupation, colonisation, take-over, ownership, or the development of Riviera property.
A borderless realm and with no policy of exclusion, persecution, or deportation.
No known address, no visa required.
It's so very, very good for us, to wonder at the world, and to be surprised by admiration for each other, rather than shocked speechless by our cavalier meanspiritedness and cruelty.
To notice our myriad variations and to unite in celebrating them, rather than resign ourselves to a submission, to entitled domination, and the astonishing savagery of spite.
State perpetrated and internationally enabled mass murder is currently actively terrorising more than one part of our world. Currently condemned by the very bodies specifically set up by humans to monitor things on earth unacceptable to human society.
These are facts. They need to be faced.
So, for the sake of clarity let's name it.
The inhumane is being perpetrated on our watch.
I'm here to name it without hesitation or doubt in my mind.
And to lend my unwavering solidarity to all those who recognise the unacceptable complacency of our greed-addicted governments, who make nice with planet-wreckers and war criminals, wherever they come from.
I'm also here to name my absolute personal faith in culture, in resistance.
An enlightened cinema can inspire a civilised world, can lend us the pause, the breath, the reflection that might embolden us.
To take the best part of ourselves; that capacity for enchantment and openness for wit and intrigue. That admiration for human flexibility and resource. Our capacity to survive things for thrill and sensation that we find in the witness that cinema represents. And build on it - out in the open and under the sky - I.R.L.
So, when the chips are down, as might be interpreted at this point in history with particular sharpness, and at any age and stage of our lives - not only the 25-year-olds- and with the settled acknowledgment that being for something does not ever imply being anti anyone. That being for humane solidarity means being for humane solidarity with all humans so invested in common decency and fair representation.
In the agreement that freedom in the naming of repressive inhumane and criminal movements - wherever and whenever - is among our essential human rights and deserves our honour and our loyalty.
On the path to believing - against all odds - in the practical feasibility of fairness on Earth, to building brave faith in - and voting for - reliable human accord, and inviolable respect among us all, without exception, for difference and dignity.
Maybe, humans – friends: trust in cinema, support big screens wherever we find them, watch everything there, hold the streaming services to their proud claim to be big cinema supporters and encourage them to spend a large chunk of their squillions on building, renovating, and enlivening cinema theatres in every territory they reach.
Encourage the curious and fearless distributors and exhibitors among us by buying ticket after ticket and making it work for them to keep us nourished and inspired with a broad and dynamic cinema ad infinitum.
Treasure the 14 decades of archive film available to us; invaluable traces of our human society and spirit. Without which our human future, not to say the future of cinema, would be immeasurably the poorer. Embolden a vibrant and responsive internationalist cinema culture for the young.
And find a Film Festival - maybe better still - found one. Right? In villages and the centre of big cities, in refugee camps, in schools and care homes, on wheels, up hills, and inflatable rafts in the ocean. Varum den nicht! [Nothing like that!]
The more the merrier. And size is not everything.
It’s all to play for.
Ich bin ganz stolz hier zu sein in diesem Ort mit euch hier war für mich ein Zuhause. Ja.
[I am very proud to be here in this place with you. This was a home for me. Yes.]
Thank you dear Berlinale. For laying out my life's magic box of faith. For all the friends I found here. For 40 years of parties and revelations. And for my beautiful, shiny bear.
Long live cinema and all its never-ending promise.
A light in the dark that never goes out.
Let's keep looking up
With all my love,
Tilda.
The ColourFeel Dispatch is written by a souled human being. No LLMs, predictive text, or algorithms were employed in the making of these narratives. All ideas are received rather than formulated, all thoughts shared not targeted. The above words have been thoughtfully tailored for your inspiration, enjoyment, and ongoing expansion.
Thank you for your continued support.