‘Movies Will Never Disappear’ Says Berlin Jury President Actress Kristen Stewart

Over the years, there has been constant chatter about the future of movies – which we have all come to love. Watching them as we do with strangers in darkened auditoriums. When television came to America in the late 1950s, theatre owners were nervous. Would the small box end the charm of the big screen? There was a lovely film on this by Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Here, the director, who has never ceased to surprise and shock me, featured the dilemma of cinema with the coming of television.

The movie is set in Hollywood in the late 1960s when he was growing up there. The film made it to Cannes 2019 at the last minute. We are led to believe that the golden age of Hollywood ended the night Sharon Tate (Roman Polanski) was brutally murdered. It goes on to tell us how with the help of anecdotes centering on her and other characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. Call it a homage to Hollywood or requiem.

Actress Kristen Stewart, who is charing the ongoing Berlin Film Festival, told a press conference, in line with Tarantino’s feature, that she does not buy the talk that movies are dead. She declared, “Cinema will live forever. Take a quick glance at your rearview mirror, we have never stopped telling each other stories.” She then referred to headlines about weakened international box office receipts as a result of the pandemic.

“How much it costs, obviously like we’re headed towards oblivion on that one. But I also think that there’s a sort of like vital, desperate need in all of us to create something. And yeah, I think when you start really fixating on like the industry of, it’s easy to be like, ‘Oh, God, it’s all falling apart!’ But I just think that there’s something vital that’s undeniable will never go away,” she added.

Stewart first attended the Berlinale in 2010 at the height of her “Twilight” fame with the independent production “Welcome to the Rileys,” alongside director Jake Scott.

The other members of the jury include actress Golshifteh Farahani (Iran/France), director and writer Valeska Grisebach (Germany), director and screenwriter Radu Jude (Romania), casting director and producer Francine Maisler (U.S.), director and screenwriter Carla Simón (Spain), and director and producer Johnnie To (Hong Kong, China).

The festival began on February 16.

(DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article are of the author alone and not the organisation.)

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