On Thursday February 5th, the Berlin Film Society will unofficially open the Berlin International Film Festival (the Berlinale), with a screening of Darren Aronofsky’s first film, Pi (1998). The Berlin Film Society decided to feature Aronofsky for his significant contribution to this year’s Berlinale, as the Jury President.
Aronofsky began his career with the surrealist psychological thriller Pi, which brought the young film director into international fame and won him the Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998. Later in his career, Aronofsky was responsible for internationally acclaimed films like Requiem for a Dream (2000) and Black Swan (2010).
Pi explores the delicate balance between madness and genius, insight and delusion, through the character Max Cohen, who obsessively attempts to calculate the workings of the world through numerical patterns and computations. Max is approached by a Hasidic cabalistic sect that seeks to obtain his computations for a messianic end and a major Wall Street firm that wishes to gain insight into the patterns of the stock market. The film is a beautifully hallucinogenic exploration of the destructive power of knowledge and knowledge as power, Max being an unreliable narrator whose mental instability increases as his computations are proven to accurately provide insight into reality.
Tickets are 12€/10€ for students. Guests will receive one complimentary drink from one of the sponsors.
Additional Info
BERLIN FILM SOCIETY
“Pi” – DARREN ARONOFSKY
Screening: Thursday, Feb. 05, 2015, 8pm
Leipziger Straße 60 (entrance Jerusalemstraße) (click here for map)
