From the "On The Scene" Archives:

by Eddie Cockrell

(indieWIRE/2.15.2000) -- John Waters did it, and so did Jennifer Fox and Haile Gerima. Jennie Livingston's done it, as have Spike Lee, Aviva Kempner and Luis Valdez. Martha Coolidge, Amos Poe, Brian De Palma and Alexandre Rockwell were among the first to do it, while Katya Bankowsky, Gregory J. Lanesey and a host of others are doing it this year.

"It" is certainly no secret: long before Sundance, Toronto and Rotterdam, the Berlin International Film Festival, celebrating it's 50th anniversary this week, staked a claim as the most Amerindie-friendly confab on the planet, a 12-day bazaar of buying, selling and screening that has very often not only been a terrific platform for sales and media in Europe and the world, but a much-needed balm for the soul of a struggling American filmmaker. Berlin audiences love Hollywood movies, to be sure, but they respond with even more fervor to movies produced outside the mainstream. As the directors above would probably tell you, taking a film to Berlin is, in every sense of the word: "it."

In the very earliest years of the festival, prints of studio fare like Mark Robson's "Bright Victory" and George Stevens Jr.'s "Shane" were flown in on U.S. military planes. By the early 1960's, independently produced and now sadly obscure titles such as Wesley Ruggles Jr.'s Asian-themed "Out of the Tiger's Mouth" and George Axelrod's "Lord Love a Duck" (just out on tape and worth a rent) appeared alongside John Ford's "The Sun Shines Bright" and, believe it or not, Norman Jewison's "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming."

In 1969, two of the films in competition were John Schlesinger's "Midnight Cowboy" and Brian De Palma's "Greetings" (which won a Silver Bear). In 1973, Steven Spielberg's "Duel" was shown, and 1978 saw the first Berlin screenings of Martin Scorsese's "Italianamerican" and John Cassavetes’ "Opening Night" (his final film "Love Streams" won the grand prize Golden Bear in 1984). In 1980, Richard Pierce's "Heartland" won the Golden Bear.

By the time I made my first of 18 annual treks to Berlin (and counting) in 1982, Forum of Young Cinema founders Ulrich and Erika Gregor had discovered the work of Alexandre Rockwell and Amos Poe, and Berlin audiences backed them up, making "Lenz" and "Subway Riders" hits of the section. In 1983 their roster included Don McGlynn's "Art Pepper," Haile Gerima's "Ashes and Embers," Charles Musser's "Before the Nickelodeon," Lizzie Borden's "Born in Flames" (to this day the most crowded and electric audience I've ever been in), Wayne Wang's "Chan is Missing," Luis Valdez' "Zoot Suit" and "Vortex" by Scott B. and Beth B. In 1984, I rushed from the airport to my first screening, only to discover I'd flown from Washington, D.C. to Berlin to see John Waters' Baltimore-set "Hairspray"; I remember two Germans calling each other "Hon" on the way out of the theater. American independents had arrived in Berlin.

In the mid-1980s, meeting other Americans in Berlin was more a matter of luck than planning, so you'd kind of sidle up to anybody speaking English and try to figure out if they were filmmakers, journalists, or tourists who had slipped past security. After making her first visit in 1986, Lynda A. Hansen decided to try and develop a system "for everybody to be able to find each other." Thus was the American Independents in Berlin program formed, the descendant of which, AIM (American Independents at the Market), is presenting nine new American independents under the auspices of the Independent Feature Project: Mia Trachinger's "Bunny," Ben Berkowitz's "Straightman," Greg Watkins, "A Sign From God," David Barker's "Afraid of Everything," Ron Lazzeretti and Venturino Liberatore's "The Opera Lover," John Putch's "Valerie Flake" and two documentaries, Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson's "Well-Founded Fear" and Arlene Donnelly's "Naked States."

"It's like we all went to school together," remembers Hansen, a vivacious fixture on the indie scene in Berlin and New York who pioneered much of the structure still in place for registered attendees, including the message center, which provided a place to meet in the days before PDA's and fax machines. Highlights for her include the market screenings of Richard Linklater's "Slacker" and John McNaughton's "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" as well as European premieres of Gus Van Sant's "Drugstore Cowboy" and Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" in the Forum, and competition berths for Allison Anders' "Gas, Food, Lodging" and Ang Lee's "The Wedding Banquet."

So far this year, it's too early to tell if any of the American independent films will be breakout hits like some of the ones listed above. But as this is written, you can bet that somewhere in the throngs milling about the Potsdamer Platz, whether in a cinema with an appreciative audience, at a café with a potential buyer or just talking to his or her colleagues, there's a struggling director saying to him -- or herself, "This is it."