NEWS & VIEWS:

Perhaps only an insider can fully evaluate the stature of this indispensable »man for all seasons« at the Berlinale. Werner Gondolf was a human compass, a walking computer, a man with an encyclopedic memory ­ all in one. But he was also a gentleman whose smile could scold as well as compliment while, from behind the scenes, he guided the festival through some pretty rough waters over the past three decades under the aegis of four festival directors.

Dieter Kosslick, the present Berlinale director, penned a gracious obituary:
»The Berlin International Film Festival is sadden by the death of Werner Gondolf, the head of the program department at the Berlinale for the past 30 years. No one knew the festival better than he. All his colleagues treasured his enormous knowledge, his wise decisions, his friendly readiness to lend a hand, his sure appraisal of a baffling dilemma, and his unforgettable humor. We will miss him dearly. Dieter Kosslick and the entire team of the Berlinale.«

My personal memories of Werner Gondolf go back to 1977, when I joined the Berlinale team under its new director Wolf Donner. We were all a bit nervous about expanding the festival into a labyrinth of interlinking programming events: Info Show (today the Panorama), Film Market, German Series, Retrospective, and Children’s Film Festival, along with the International Forum of New Cinema as its adjunct. Someone had to tie all these loose ends together as head of the programming department. The lot fell to Werner, whose acumen far exceeded his recognized abilities as an English translator. I watched with wonder and admiration as he deftly scheduled an immense program without ever really consulting a calculator. Not only did he have all the vital statistics in his head, but he also served with a sure feeling the interests of the festival team. Later, from my perspective as an American journalist for the »trades,Laquo; I found Werner to be a valuable source of advice and information ­ for which I would sometimes repay the favor by explaining how American »slanguage« found its way into film reviews and reporting. Once, while talking about his latest trip to the United States, he hit me with the first complaint I ever heard to pass the smile on his lips: »Those museums in San Francisco may be wonderful, but that jetlag coming back from California is just too much!« When he became ill, he talked openly about his biweekly visits to the hospital »to correct a minor kidney problem,« as he once put it. Now that he is gone, I wish I had asked him more about his favorite museums. His anecdotes about art and culture were always right on the button. Like one would expect ... from a man of all seasons.

Werner had many friends. At the funeral service in the chapel at the Artists Cemetery in Berlin-Schöneberg, the elite of the Berlinale film scene gathered to bid him farewell: Dieter Kosslick, Erica and Ulrich Gregor, Erika and Moritz de Hadeln, Peter Böhme, Alfred Holighaus, Wieland Speck, Margarete von Schiller, Ronald Trisch, Jürgen Schau, et al. Moving words were spoken by Wieland Speck and Werner’s cousin Benedikt Gondolf. On the way out to the cemetery we all were handed a glass of whiskey ­ a final toast to a man who lived for his friends.

Ron and Dorothea Holloway