By Julian Wood
So, this is the Berlinale, the Berlin Film festival, one of the biggies in the international film calendar and a total scrum. Four hundred films, literally thousands of journalists and photographers, dozens of venues and a conveyor belt of stars and starlets. The red carpet (which is quite often blue incidentally) is surrounded by a huge maze of police lines and barriers presided over by an army of helpers in black capes hovering around like extras waiting for a scene in a vampire movie.
First into the glare is Emily Watson looking quite petite despite the huge heels on her suede booties. She pivots awkwardly in her beige frock coat, being turned this way and that by the pleas of the snapping herd of photographers. She smiles wanly but you can’t help sensing that she is gritting her teeth beneath that baffled smile.
Just next to the carpet, a couple of young men are holding up a giant banner. Most people seem to mistake this for part of the publicity machine but, on closer inspection, it turns out to be a protest. What is the issue? One of them explains that they work front of house in a big cinema chain (which is now part of the same global conglomerate as Greater Union incidentally). The cinema staff are mostly young and easily exploited and are non-unionised. Their conditions are getting systematically worse all the time. As in other industries, the drift to casualisation is rampant and job security and health and safety are being steadily eroded. They say that the firm will only give each worker less than twenty hours a week of shifts. At only 11 euros an hour this does not provide a living wage for someone wanting to survive in Berlin. Behind the young man is the faint yellow glow of a Maccas. It seems that the employment practices are subtly spreading. The irony is not lost on our young protestor. His generation has inherited a world without the stabilities of the past.
In all the glamour and glitz of the film festival dedicated to an industry that gives pleasure to millions, it is easy to somehow forget that it also depends upon a workforce with job aspirations and families to feed.
The crowd throngs to see the next big name and I ask the man who they chose this time and place to make their protest. “This is the only hope we have,” he says, “I could stand out here for 364 days of the year other than this one and no one would even notice us. The police wouldn’t even bother to move us on.” It is not entirely clear that many people are noticing them tonight either, but their invisibility is worth pondering.
