After premiering at Adelaide Film Festival in October, Soda Jerk’s Hello Dankness will make its international premiere in the Berlinale’s Panorama section.
Hello Dankness, comprised of hundreds of pirated film samples, follows an American suburban neighbourhood through the years 2016 to 2021, reflecting on the changes undergone in American society since Trump and how consensus reality has disintegrated into conspiracies and other political contagions.
The film is one of 14 early selections for the Berlin International Film Festival section dedicated to “extraordinary cinema”, with a focus on unconventional stories, political and social issues, and identity.
The Panorama program so far spans work from 19 countries, with the festival noting it “manifests a worldwide trend towards transnational filmmaking in both fiction films and documentaries.” Other films in the line-up include those from Sepideh Farsi, Jennifer Reeder, Tina Satter, Sacha Polak, Malene Choi and Ira Sachs.
“This year features impressive independent filmmaking from across the globe,” said Panorama section head Michael Stütz.
“The many works by filmmakers worldwide who are using their films to defy war, systematic persecution and oppression are particularly striking. The trend towards transnational filmmaking is reflected in the numerous strong submissions. This all creates a rich breeding ground for a wide-ranging, highly topical 2023 Panorama.”
Soda Jerk – siblings Dan and Dominique Angeloro who are originally from Sydney and based in New York – are known for their sample-based, mash-up experimental films, with previous work comprising Terror Nullius and The Was.
Hello Dankness was the 2022 Art & Moving Image Co-commission by the Adelaide Film Festival and Samstag Museum of Art, a program which supports bold and innovative screen-based works by artists and screen creators. The film screened in Adelaide in a special exhibition in the Samstag, Open Sauce, alongside their previous projects.
After its debut in Adelaide, Hello Dankness received a four-star review from The Guardian critic Luke Buckmaster, who wrote “there are cool directors, and then there are directors as cool as Soda Jerk” noting their work makes the content reassembly of the pop culture cycle “explicit, amplified, and turbocharged”.
Berlin International Film Festival returns in-person in February 16-23.