Find Out What Happened When A Sundance World Premiere Broke Down Minutes Before Its Ending

Find Out What Happened When A Sundance World Premiere Broke Down Minutes Before Its Ending

By Angie Han/Jan. 21, 2017 9:00 am EST

The Berlin Syndrome screening had already suffered a slight hiccup earlier in the film when a PA announcement mistakenly stated that the venue would be closing in 8 minutes. We in the audience laughed it off and went back to the movie. But things got so much worse as the film neared its big climax.

Berlin Syndrome is a dramatic thriller about a young tourist (Palmer) who’s taken captive by a man (Riemelt) she met while traveling through Germany. As you can imagine, the film builds tension throughout and peaks in intensity with the climax at the very end. It was in the middle of that climax that the projection suddenly froze.

At that point, a decision was made to jump right into the Q&A, so Shortland, Staniford, Palmer, and Riemelt were all ushered out front. Of course, it’s terribly hard to do a Q&A when the audience hasn’t seen the end of the movie, so Palmer wound up giving a play-by-play of the entire climax to the audience, with assistance from Riemelt and the others. She handled the situation about as well as she could, given the circumstances, putting on a bright smile and trying to make the best of it.

It’s a shame Berlin Syndrome’s world premiere screening went so poorly, especially because the film itself is quite good and probably would have played even better were it not for that long interruption. Shortland does an excellent job of building tension throughout the movie, making much of it a supremely uncomfortable experience (in a good way). The actors are excellent as predator and prey, and their performances keep evolving as the characters’ dynamic gets more complicated. Riemelt, in particular, is terrifyingly adept at weaponizing his charisma.

I can only imagine that this situation was a heartbreaking and devastating one for them, and it’s frankly remarkable that they were all able to keep their composure as well as they did. As Shortland said to us, “This is literally a filmmaker’s worst nightmare.”