Tilda Swinton is planning to take a break from acting after her trip to the Berlin Film Festival comes to an end.
The Oscar winner told journalists this morning that she will be heading to Scotland after Berlin to rest and recuperate after an intense period of work. “I need a break, and I’m going to have one,” she added. “We all know filmmaking is a merciless mistress and I have been under the lash for a while.”
“When I go home to Scotland on Monday, I am entering something that I have been looking forward to for 15 years, which is a period of my life when I do something different. I can’t quite say what it is, but I can say I’m not shooting a film for the rest of this year.”
She added she needs “time” to develop several projects — “some are for cinema and some are not.” She noted that since the pandemic, the difficulties in making indie filmmaking meant that actors and actresses are under pressure to immediately film when financing is found. “Things have got a little crazy,” she added.
“In the olden days — ‘BC’, before Covid — people used to say, ‘We think we’ve got the money to make an independent film,’ and we would just say, ‘Can we just hold another nine months to develop something?’ and people would very often say, ‘okay,’” recalled Swinton. “Since Covid, that has been, ‘No, the money is here now and have to do it.’ That feeling of smash and grab, and the insecurity about finance, has been really strenuous for us all. I need a break, so I am going to have one.”
She was talking at a press conference held the morning after she was presented with the Honorary Golden Bear last night in a snowy German capital. Sitting alongside fest director Tricia Tuttle
Yesterday, Swinton was presented with the Honorary Golden Bear. In a following speech, she took aim at “the inhumane” that “is being perpetrated on our watch,” adding, “I’m here to name it without hesitation or doubt in my mind, and to lend my unwavering solidarity to all those who recognize the unacceptable complacency of our greed-addicted governments who make nice with planet wreckers and war criminals, wherever they come from.”
During today’s press conference, she explained why she decided to attend the festival despite the BDS movement calling for boycotts over the conflict in Gaza, in relation to the treatment of filmmakers who spoke out against last year.
“I’m a great admirer of and have a great deal of respect for BDS and I think about it a lot,” said Swinton. “I decided it was more important for me to come. I was given a platform, which I decided in a personal moment was potentially more useful to all our causes than me not turning up. It was a judgment call that I take full responsibility for.”
She added that she had “enormous respect” for those with opposing views. “What were all up against is this feeling of powerlessness and helplessness, so any powerful action or gesture we can make feels like a good option. I understand that boycotting can feel, and often is, the most powerful thing we can do.”
