SHOWING TODAY
One filmmaker likely to be arriving in Berlin in a state of some exhaustion is Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan, whose seventh feature Hold You Tight (Yue Kuaile, Yue Duoluo) is screening today in competition. No sooner had Kwan finished his duties as one of the jurors at the International Film Festival at Rotterdam last week than he had to jump on a plane to fly east for the world premiere of Hold You Tight in Hong Kong. After a day or two to get over the jet lag, Kwan headed straight back to Europe for the film's Berlinale screening. What he is losing in sleep he is presumably making up in air miles.
Also screening today, The Coen brothers' long-awaited follow-up to Fargo, The Big Lebowski, which is touted as "a Raymond Chandler story for the 90s". Jeff Bridges stars as Lebowski, the laziest (and quite possibly one of the hairiest) men in LA, an unlucky dude mistaken for a millionaire by two bad-mannered thugs, who becomes caught up in a bizarre kidnapping conspiracy. When the going gets tough, Lebowski's friends from the bowling alley - Coen regulars John Goodman and Steve Buscemi contrive to make a bad situation worse. GM
IN TOWN
Patrick Binet, Grace Carley, Claudie Cheval, Adriana Chiesa, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Michael Degen, André Dussollier, Hans Eksteen, Andie Engel, Pamela Engel, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Edward E Frumkes, Dominique Green, Fred de Haas, Amy Kaufman, Alfredo Knuchel, Labina Mitevska, Lynda Myles, José Maria Otero Timón, Jean Ovrum, Simon Perry, Stephen Sewell, Roger Shannon, Manfredi Traxler, Lieselotte Tyc-Holm, Joseph Vilsmaier, Rachel Weisz, Sönke Wortmann, Colin Young, Eric-Jacques Strauss, Yossi Somer, Eva Tarr-Kirkhope, Axel Helgeland, Dr. Guglielmo Biraghi, Stanley Kwan, Filip Robar-Dorin, Judit Sugár
PANORAMA SPOTLIGHT
Grandma Domina
By day a doting grandma and graduate student, by night a leather-girdled dominatrix. So is the double life of Eva Norvind. Monika Treut tells her fascinating story in Didn't Do It For Love, a Panorama selection.
The two women met in New York in the late 1980s. Eva came to the press screening of an earlier Treut film on domination and hated it. "She immediately attacked me," says Treut. "It was a very negative way of meeting."
Although Norvind liked the way the film looked she didn't like Treut's treatment of the subject.
"I believe that domination should be done from a loving standpoint," she explains. "It showed cruelty
without the love behind it."Then Eva turned around and helped with the opening night party. "We became friends," says Treut.
After her acting career in Mexican films ended in the mid-1960s, Norvind worked as a journalist and photographer. At first reluctant to get involved in the domination scene, gradually she realised she was very drawn to it. And once she gave in to her desires she decided to make it a business. "You have to capitalise on your obsessions in life," she says, paraphrasing Helmut Newton. Later she lectured on domination and now she plans to write a book.
Treut's next film is on women who take testosterone. Owen Levy
FESTIVAL BUZZ
In the tradition of the festival director having an open-door policy for all interest groups represented at the festival, Moritz de Hadeln has received delegations from the Italian press at the festival club. "I wanted to express my delight that Italy has once more returned to the festival," he said.
Today de Hadeln will receive the French press in a similar meeting. At the VIP club yesterday, competition contenders Nick Hurran and festival friend Gus van Sant exchanged enthusiastic pleasantries about the films' presentation in Berlin.
The board of directors of the European Film Promotion held a meeting to decide that Claudia Landsberger would appear on stage yesterday with Ben Kingsley and Moritz de Hadeln to present the young European talent - they then held another meeting to decide unanimously that she wouldn't appear. It turned out that de Hadeln and Kingsley decided that the two of them were enough. A busy day indeed for Kingsley, who chaired his first jury meeting - which, according to the festival director, was a sell-out.
Traditionally, German films selected in the Berlinale are rumoured to get the kiss of death from the German press. Not so for this year's German entry Das Mambospiel, which has had an extended honeymoon so far for its director Michael Gwisdek and star Corinna Harfouch.
Berlin has always been the place where you suck it and see. This year the SAT 1 little balls have been very popular and people have been seen sucking them all over the festival. Mmmmm lecker!
WHAT THE PAPERS ARE SAYING
The Berlinale takes a look at how the German and international media view the festival and the surrounding goings-on
Matt Damon and real-life boyhood friend Ben Affleck were too busy shooting to relish the applause that greeted their performances [in Good Will Hunting] on the second day of the festival. But judging by the reaction, jury president Ben Kingsley and his 10 fellow members should have the movie on a shortlist from the 25 titles vying for the Golden Bear award.
Reuters (UK)
The choice of the prime time competition slot for Walter Salles' Central do Brasil could be a discreet signal that the festival programmers already are betting on the success of the film.
Until now the film has not found a great rival in Berlin with the possible exception of Good Will Hunting - which is not all that great but has its popular appeal and fundamental human characteristics that might appeal to the jury.
Jornal do Brasil (Brazil)
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