{"id":477820,"date":"2026-02-13T17:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/477820\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T17:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:55:08","slug":"neil-patrick-harris-latest-actor-to-avoid-politics-at-berlin-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/477820\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Patrick Harris Latest Actor To Avoid Politics At Berlin Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Berlin<\/a> Film Festival has always been viewed as a deeply political forum, possibly the most politically charged of all major film festivals.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year, despite the event taking place against a backdrop of deadly protests in the U.S. and the Epstein scandal, conflict in the Middle East, and Germany\u2019s own ongoing grapple with the far-right party AfD, multiple high-profile actors and jury members have avoided questions about domestic and international political crises. That despite the best efforts of journalists to engage actors and filmmakers on subjects of a political nature.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis situation played out again Friday at the press conference for filmmaker George Jaques\u2019 Generation title Sunny Dancer<\/a>, about a group of youngsters who find friendship at a summer camp for cancer survivors.<\/p>\n

\n\tNeil Patrick Harris<\/a>, Bella Ramsey<\/a>, James Norton, Jessica Gunning and Earl Cave are among cast in the film, which is composed by Este Haim and Zachary Dawes.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Berlin Film Festival 2026 Photo<\/a>s<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tAt today\u2019s press conference for the movie, Ramsey and Harris were asked by a journalist whether they consider their \u201cart to be political, and if so, how can movies these days help fight the rise of fascism in Europe and in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFilmmaker Jaques commented: \u201cI think sometimes the most rebellious thing you can do is be optimistic. And we wanted to make a film about joy. I think, you know, there\u2019s so much going on in the world right now, and I wanted to make something that really takes you somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHarris added: \u201cI think we live in a in a strangely algorithmic and divided world right now. And so as artists, I\u2019m always interested in doing things that are apolitical, because we\u2019re all as humans wanting to connect in some way. That\u2019s why we experience things together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA journalist from German public broadcaster ARD pushed back at Harris\u2019 stance and also at the stance adopted by jury president Wim Wenders<\/a> on Thursday who said \u201cWe have to stay out of politics\u201d when he was asked about the German government\u2019s support for Israel in the Gaza conflict. Festival head Tricia Tuttle at the same presser had also tried to steer the conversation away from political talk.<\/p>\n

\n\tToday, the impassioned ARD journalist responded: \u201cIt\u2019s embarrassing to say the film isn\u2019t political. Without proper health insurance, I wouldn\u2019t be here. I had cancer myself. So the film is political, and this festival must be political.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Berlin Film Festival 2026: Opening Gala, \u2018No Good Men\u2019 Premiere & Red Carpet Gallery<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier in the day, Michelle Yeoh had been asked by a reporter about the current state of the U.S., likely referring to the tense political and social climate in the country. Yeoh said: \u201cI don\u2019t think I am in the position to really talk about the political situation in the U.S., and also I cannot presume to say I understand how it is. So, best not to talk about something I don\u2019t know about.\u201d Yeoh, who is Malaysian and primarily lives in Switzerland but is well known for starring in a host of high-profile U.S. projects, added that she wanted to \u201cconcentrate on what is important for us, which is cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJournalists at today\u2019s Sunny Dancer presser wouldn\u2019t be deterred. A writer from German broadcaster ZDF asked Harris, as a U.S. citizen, whether he \u201cdared criticize the U.S. government and whether he believes democracy is in danger in the U.S.\u201d The moderator interjected that the question wasn\u2019t relevant to Sunny Dancer and Harris said he would rather discuss the film, before adding: \u201cI make my own choices as a performer, as an artist \u2026 I feel more the jester in the castle. So while I have my own political opinions, which are my own, I think as a performer, especially in this kind of movie, it\u2019s trying to be as inclusive as possible to as many people as possible. So I never read this script as a political statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt that stage the festival moderator steered the conversation back to the movie. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Last of Us and Game of Thrones star Ramsey told journalists in the room that making Sunny Dancer had inspired her to want to direct in the future and that the experience was the best \u201cpersonal and professional\u201d one she had had to date.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSunny Dancer was honestly, like, the best experience I\u2019ve had in my career so far,\u201d she said. \u201cIt will be very hard to top. It\u2019s a big statement but it was probably the best professional six weeks, and also one of the best personal six weeks, of my frickin\u2019 life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Berlin Film Festival has always been viewed as a deeply political forum, possibly the most politically charged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,243090,79354,106561,447,134,70983,243091],"class_list":{"0":"post-477820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bella-ramsey","11":"tag-berlin","12":"tag-berlin-film-festival","13":"tag-celebrities","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-neil-patrick-harris","16":"tag-sunny-dancer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}