Berlinale defends screening of Artsakh film amid accusations of ‘propaganda’

The Berlin International Film Festival has defended its screening of film on the Artsakh conflict amid accusations of promoting “anti-Azerbaijani propaganda,” The Calvert Journal reports.

Directed by Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, Black Bach Artsakh reflects on the decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Divided into 13 acts that echo the rhythm of Bach’s cantatas, the film interweaves essayistic landscape shots with a voiceover reflecting on the nature of war, identity, and belonging, as well as interviews with Armenian residents of the region in 2007.

The Berlinale’s description of the film sparked a fierce online backlash, with critics describing the screening as a “propaganda film” with “one-sided story telling”. The passage in question referred to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s as “a struggle for liberation and self-determination”, and called the recent 2020 war an “invasion by Azerbaijan’s dictator”.

But the festival rejected calls for the film to be excluded from the programme, instead releasing an official statement on 2 March, a day after the film premiered.

. @berlinale – you’ve always been much more than a regular film festival. You are a platform that provokes critical discussion and opens important discourse. I refer to your management: if you think that this movie is in keeping with the spirit of #Berlinale then you’re wrong. pic.twitter.com/bNeFMz3bix

— Uchan (@uchsich) February 28, 2021