A Berlin International Film Festival venue at the Potsdamer Platz Arkaden in Germany Photo: Li Jingjing/GT

Lucy Mukerjee-Brown Photo: Courtesy of Lucy Mukerjee-Brown

The rise of US President Donald Trump , together with an increasingly troubled political environment around the globe, has weighed heavily on the shoulders of some film industry veterans. Fortunately, the ongoing Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) has offered a way for them to speak out by focusing on diversity.Lucy Mukerjee-Brown came to the Berlinale in search of good LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) films to bring back to the US. Mukerjee-Brown is the director of programming at Outfest, an organization based in LA that is dedicated to promoting LGBT equality by protecting, sharing and creating stories about this group on screen.However, after US President Donald Trump, who may be reconsidering same-sex marriage and is believed to have a number of anti-gay staff in his cabinet, took office in January, the organization she works for has faced more obstacles."We get our funding through three ways: from national art organizations, sponsors and wealthy individuals. All of these three sources of money are getting smaller this year," Mukerjee-Brown told the Global Times on Wednesday.With this funding, her organization arranges three film festivals in the US every year, as well as supports young LGBT people to achieve their filmmaking dreams."People from all three groups told us, 'We are really sorry. We have a smaller budget this year. We don't know what's gonna happen in the new administration, so we can't promise you the same amount as we promised last year,'" Mukerjee-Brown said.Figuring out how to carry out the same activities with less funding has posed a major challenge for Outfest.Mukerjee-Brown said she feels "it is more necessary" than ever for organizations like hers to exist and work in the face of potential threats to LGBT groups from the Trump administration.By Wednesday, seven days into the 10-day festival, she had seen 12 films on LGBT subjects and pitched nearly half of them for their upcoming film festival in LA in July. And there are still plenty more films left for her to watch.According to her, the long time gay-friendly environment makes Berlinale an ideal place for her to pitch qualified films.The Berlinale's Panorama section has been a major program at the Berlinale since the 1970s. Dedicated to finding new films and new directions for art house films, it has had a reputation for being a great home to LGBT films since the 1980s.Among the films for Panorama this year, family dramas have played a big role. Wieland Speck, the curator of the Panorama section, talked about a trend he observed this year during a talk at the Goethe Institute in Berlin on Tuesday."There are many family dramas indeed, but the family looks different," he said.Dysfunctional families were the topic of family dramas in the past, but now families are seen "more positively, however in a very complicated and very diverse way."For example, Japanese film Close-Knit portrays a family in which the mother is transsexual and the daughter is actually the husband's niece.In addition to complicated family dramas, historical awareness and black history are also subjects that many films have focused on this year."It appears to me that in 2017, many films are focusing on remembering or the act of remembrance," Speck said. For example, US film Bones of Contention uncovers a hidden story in Spain after the lost bones of late Spanish writer Federico García Lorca are found.After curating Panorama for almost 30 years, Speck said he believes "films can really do something. It can be a weapon, it can be something that inspires and enforces processes in society."The first major European festival of the year, Berlinale attracts filmmakers from all around the globe.Cláudio Marques, director and head of the festival Panorama Intern Coisa de Cinema in Brazil, is fascinated by the variety of films that Berlinale provides."[The] Generation [section] is so wonderful!" Marques told the Global Times."Many films focus on very serious issues among young people," Marques said, adding that he believes many of these topics are rarely seen in most films, but crucially important for the young.Generation is a section that Berlinale has devoted to children and young people since 1978.The number and variety of films being shown at Panorama and Generation are much more appealing to him than the Competition section, which normally draws the brighter spotlight since films in this last section are competing for the Golden and Silver Bears.Marques said that compared to other major film festivals, the public as well as filmmakers are able to really watch films of all kinds at Berlinale.Also impressed is Le Nguyen, an independent filmmaker from Vietnam. He said that he had a hard time believing how strong the public's passion for films is. He told the Global Times that "people are lining up like they do for blockbusters" at the night screening of films selected for the Berlinale Shorts section.He added that almost no viewers watch short films in cinemas in Vietnam.This is Le's first Berlinale and first time in Europe. So far he has continued jumping from theater to theater to watch as many films as possible."It gives me inspiration and confidence for making my own films," Le said.