The actor took advantage of his participation in the Berlinale to meet with Angela Merkel, from whom he praised his politics and asked for greater international involvement.
US actor George Clooney praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policy in Berlin yesterday and called for greater international involvement, including the United States, to address the migration crisis.
"Obviously it is something that is felt much more here in Europe and in particular in Germany, which has assumed this disproportionate amount of responsibility," said the actor, who opened the Berlinale yesterday with the film "Hail, Caesar!" ("Hail, César!") and met with Merkel at the Chancellery.
Clooney attended the interview with the chancellor accompanied by his wife, Amal, and explained that "there were many exchanges" of opinions and ideas.
"Amal and I had a lot of things we wanted to talk about, mainly what we can do to support any effort, to help with the refugee crisis" and "how other people, including the United States, can offer more assistance. ", revealed about their conversation.
His intention is to also meet two refugees in Berlin to learn his stories, an option he preferred instead of visiting a reception center for asylum seekers.
"The reality is this: they are people. And when people talk about refugees, they talk in numbers, 6 million, or 60 million around the world. It's a huge number, but these people, these families who have been killed and tried to save their children's lives... I want to know their names and I want to see their faces," he said.
Clooney claims to have been to many refugee camps, but he insists that "human beings" are important.
Regarding the social function of cinema, he was convinced that "practically every issue is addressed in one way or another in the movies."
"I'm always interested in films by filmmakers from Iran or other countries that are more repressive regarding freedom of expression. They find their way to do it and we get to see it," he said.
For the actor, this is precisely what gives importance to festivals like the Berlinale, which "include films like these, which talk about topics that are not necessarily going to be screened in multiplexes."
The theme of this 66th edition of the Berlinale is, by the decision of its director, Dieter Kosslick, immigration in its multiple variants and perspectives and coincides with the tensions generated in Germany by the arrival last year of 1.1 million refugees.
Clooney was delighted to be back at the Berlin film festival, both because of the "great history" of the city, and of his Babelsberg studios, which in their more than a hundred years of existence have also made history with "really interesting" films. ".
Participating in this festival is "simply exciting" and "tremendously fun" because "they know the cinema", although, he joked, "the opening night of the festival is really long".
"I'm going to talk to Dieter about this because when I entered (the gala) I was 23 years old and I left at 54," he said, causing his co-star to laugh in "Hail, Caesar!" ("Hail, Caesar!"), American actor Channing Tatum.
The film by the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, with Clooney, Tatum, Josh Brolin, Tilda Swinton, and Alden Ehrenreich among the stars who have come to Berlin, was in charge of opening the new edition of the festival.
