If you’ve seen her New Yorker Festival interview, you know Lydia Tár wears many hats: maestra, Berlin Philharmonic’s first female conductor, field-hockey champ Linda Tarr, Petra’s father, and a character played by Cate Blanchett. Now she will add “cinematic universe†to her illustrious résumé. The Berlin International Film Festival announced that, as part of its 2023 lineup, Todd Field, Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir will host a talk at a special screening of their 2022 critical hit (in both the film and gaming sense of the term), Tár. “We are also delighted to be premiering a new short that expands the Tár universe, The Fundraiser,†said the festival’s artistic director, Carlo Chatrian.
We don’t know anything else about The Fundraiser at this time — will it be a prequel? A sequel? We can presume from the title that it might have more scenes of overbloated arts organizations squabbling over bureaucracy. Still, the phrase “Tár universe,†spoken like some sort of D23 MCU announcement, will most likely make certain subsects of Film Twitter and Queer Twitter straight-up black out. Add it to the list of Lydia Tár’s crimes.