Think of star stunts at film festivals and the images that most likely spring to mind are Diana Dors lying on a Venice gondola dressed in a mink bikini or topless starlets running amok on the Croisette. This year's Shooting Stars initiative in Berlin promises to be rather different.
"It is something I've been wanting to do for a very long time," said Claudia Landsberger, president of European Film Promotion, the outfit organising the event. "Stars are what draw us to see films."
The idea is for the nine actresses and seven actors selected to participate in two days of workshops during which they will meet agents and industry figures. They will also be presented formally to the international press by Jury President Ben Kingsley today at 11am. Although Landsberger promises there won't be any Spice Girls-style stunts in which the young stars jump out of cakes, EFP is throwing a big party for the actors and actresses involved at one of the city's most elegant hotels, the Adlon.
Berlin director Moritz de Hadeln is fully supportive of the event. "We most welcome this European initiative, as it fulfills one of our aims: to strengthen European cinema and assure its future," he remarked. "what would filmmaking be without these talented actreses and actors, soon - I am confident - our stars of tomorrow."
On the most basic business level, stars make sense. As a famous Hollywood investors' prospectus of the1920s put it, they provide a film with a production value, an insurance value and a trademark value.
Unfortunately, European cinema languishes a long way behind Hollywood when it comes to creating 'marquee names.' France and Britain may currently boast a few 'international' faces, but the rest of Europe (with some very obvious exceptions) do not. "The only ones we know about are the ones who have appeared in American films," Claudia Landsberger observes. She hopes that the Shooting Stars initiative, which is intended as only the first in a series of promotional pushes for European actors and actresses, may begin to help redress the balance.
Ben Kingsley attributes the shortfall in European stars to the "octopus-like hold" that big American companies have on distribution. "Each territory of Europe has its beloved and cherished stars, but because of the allergy to subtitles and foreign films, they don't travel nearly as much as I believe they could."
Victor Löw, Holland's representative in Shooting Stars, believes that the problem lies in the attitudes of the stars themselves. A generation ago, he says, actors of the stature of Marcello Mastroianni (who died last year) and Gerard Depardieu had a recklessness and rebelliousness which their contemporary counterparts can't emulate. "They were the ones who could attack the establishment." Nowadays, he suggests, instead of defiance, young actors offer only doubt and introspection.
Arguably, the European star system has also suffered from the decline of the auteur. There are few contemporary filmmakers to rival Truffaut, Antonioni or Wajda, and, as a result, less of the great roles which helped establish the likes of Jeanne Moreau, Zbigniew Cybulski or Alain Delon. The Catherine Deneuve hommage at this year's Berlinale is a timely reminder that there are still a few European stars who can easily match their Hollywood rivals in glamour and ability.
The 16 actors and actresses involved are: Fritz Karl (Austria), Sabrina Leurquin, Michaël Pas (Belgium), Clotilde Courau, Melvil Poupaud (France), Franka Potente, Jürgen Vogel (Germany), Labina Mitevska, Rachel Weisz (UK), Vicky Volioti (Greece), Victor Löw (Holland), Beatriz Batarda (Portugal), Anneke Von Der Lippe (Norway), Lars Simonsen (Denmark) and Juan Diego Botto, Ingrid Rubio (Spain). GM
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