Politically provocative

First one sneaker, then another. They're followed by a blue, plastic slipper and a boat full of water. Finally, you see a young woman washing up on a Greek beach. She's a young, illegal African immigrant called Betty and the protagonist of the film "Indignados" (The Outraged) by Algerian-born director Tony Gatlif.

The film tells the story of Betty's hopes for a better life in Europe and the harsh reality she encounters once she's made it there. The camera follows Betty's journey among invisible, undocumented migrants like herself, seeking shelter in railway carriages or in cardboard sheets under bridges at night.

"Indignados" is loosely based on "Indignez-vous!" (Time for Outrage), an essay by Stéphane Hessel, a 94-year-old concentration camp survivor and former diplomat and ambassador. The slim volume, which urges readers to take action against the unfairness of modern society, has become a global bestseller and has been translated into at least 40 languages.

It has not just inspired Tony Gatlif's powerful feature film but has also become a reference text for several civilian protests including the Occupy movement against the power of financial markets.

"Everyone has a good reason to feel that the world cannot continue the way it has," said Hessel, who was born in 1917 in Berlin. "We must do something so that the world improves."



Filming amid serious danger

What we need isn't violence but rather courage, Hessel added. That was demonstrated by people last year in Egypt, in Tunisia, Libya and Yemen as they gathered the courage to stand up against their authoritarian rulers and eventually topple them.

Though people took to the streets in peaceful protest, many of the dictatorial regimes used violence to crush the dissent. That's the focus of the documentary "The Reluctant Revolutionary" by British filmmaker Sean McAllister. He headed to Yemen in early 2011 as anti-government protests unfolded on the streets of the capital Sanaa.

Amid serious danger to his own life, McAllister filmed a massacre in the city in which 52 civilians were killed. The documentary tracks how the shock of the killings changes the political views of the protagonist, a 35-year-old Yemeni tour guide operator and hotel-owner plagued by personal and financial problems.

The Arab Spring has inspired and fired the imagination of several, mainly young, filmmakers. Many of their candid works offer insights into realities that are far removed from the familiar television images of the protests in the Arab world.



The female factor

London-based Egyptian filmmaker Hanan Abdalla, for instance, explores the lives of women who are struggling to understand what has happened in their country.

Abadalla's documentary "In the Shadow of a Man" shows four Egyptian women - a young mother, a single shop-owner, a feisty widow and a divorced older woman - navigating their everyday lives amid a tumultuous atmosphere of euphoria, stagnation and change.

Women and their perspectives played a strong role in many of the films examining developments in the Arab world at this year's Berlinale.

The documentary "Words of Witness" by Mai Iskander focuses on Cairo journalist Heba Afify, who is convinced that people in Egypt want to continue the revolution and bring it to a successful end.

But Afify warns that patience is needed because several allies of former President Hosni Mubarak are still in power and that corruption is still widespread. Heba Afify comes across as a brilliant protagonist who isn't just incredibly brave but also gives a voice to the multitude of perspectives in Egypt and fights to carve out a place for herself in a changing Egyptian society.



Globalization and nuclear disaster

Further south in Africa, the documentary "Living/Building" by filmmaker Clémence Ancelin shows a French company building a road through a dry desert in Chad. The region is home to nomads who, much like their ancestors, survive on what they can find in the scraggy landscape. The road ends up changing the lives of some in nearby villages. For others, like the nomads, the strip of progress means nothing.

Filmmaker Ancelin, who visited a friend working in Chad, filmed her observations and her talks with construction workers, inhabitants and European engineers. The result is a fascinating snapshot of globalization with the desert forming the tapestry for a tale about hierarchy, class and modernity. It's an extraordinary film that leaves you both happy and sad because nobody in the film speaks yet about the price of modern life or the threats that the other, new life can bring.

The themes explored in many of the films that unspooled in the Competition section at this year's Berlinale were varied, touching on issues such as freedom, power, isolation, environment catastrophes and human aberrations.

Three films alone took on Japan after the tsunami and earthquake in March last year and the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. They grapple with the lives of people there and conclude that everything has changed.

Author: Silke Bartlick / sp
Editor: Kate Bowen