Berlin

In cooperation with director Uli M Schueppel, Berlinale partner ARRI Film & TV created a completely new, digital edition of the Berlinale opener. The trailer can now be shown at a resolution of up to 4K and at a frame rate of up to 96 frames per second, as well as in stereo 3D.

The trailer has preceded every film screening at the festival since 2002.  Its revision involved the recombining of each individual component on the computer. "But we still wanted to retain an element from the previous film, just like in the original version," comments Wolf Bosse, CCO of ARRI Film & TV in Berlin, who also worked on the first version. For the revision, the initial graphic streaks in the image were recorded on 35mm film as colour structures at Alexanderplatz in Berlin, and then heavily distorted to create the so-called "northern lights" in the beginning sequence. In the first version, these elements came from Schueppel's film Planet Alex.

The modernised 4K version is the most recent in a series of formats. In 2001, the fully graphical trailer was also at the technological cutting edge with a 2K resolution. A DCP and a 3D version were added a few years ago, both also created by the current ARRI team. Now the trailer's three-dimensionality can finally attain its full splendour, as the new resolution makes the trailer considerably more detailed. "Now, you can really look into the arrangement of bears in the sphere at the beginning; the elements are sharper and the colours are deeper," says Bosse in describing the renovations. "Quite a leap for the well-loved trailer. It was a great task and challenge to take the festival visual that came to the Berlinale with Dieter Kosslick to the next level."

It was director Uli M Schueppel who came up with the idea for the sequence and individual graphical elements. “I’ve always seen the Berlinale as it’s own special world. Like a whole planet, filled with energies, imagination and creativity that then blooms like a fireworks display of ideas here in the festival spaces,” comments Schueppel on the origin of his idea. “And so I tried to create a trailer that lends all these cinematic visions a glittering curtain.”

Artist Angelika Marguhl designed the storyboard, while Xaver von Treyer and Johannes Königer - who composed music for Tom Tykwer's Heaven and Good-bye Lenin!, among others - were responsible for the score. The accompanying melody has also now been remixed in Dolby Atmos and 7.1 Surround Sound by Dolby and ROTOR Film Babelsberg.

However, the trailer's content and music - for many, the signature tune of the Berlinale under Dieter Kosslick - have remained largely the same.

The Berlinale is happy to present audiences with the well-known visual in new and fully digitised look at over 2,500 screenings prior to the film.