One of this year’s central celebrations is the 20th anniversary of the peaceful revolution and the fall of the Wall in 1989. To mark this occasion, the 59th Berlin International Film Festival is presenting the special series “After Winter Comes Spring – Films Presaging the Fall of the Wall”. Following the Festival, the programme will tour throughout Germany. For the series, which was initiated by the Deutsche Kinemathek and the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the curator and ...
Friday, 6 February----
The European Film Market, the professional component of the Berlinale, opened yesterday at the historic Martin Gropius Bau with more of a whimper than a bang. Attendance on the opening day and for today's first official day of market screenings was definitely sparse compared to years past, with hallways amazingly empty and ample empty seats available in the cafe and meeting points. "This is the slowest Berlin I've ever experienced", one veteran sales agent...
There are at least half a dozen daily newpapers that come out every day in Berlin and it is easy to see which personalities are the flavors of the day just by glancing at the pictures that adorn the front pages every day here during the festival.
Yesterday it was all Tom Tykwer, tall pleasant-looking 43 year old director of the festival's opening film "The Internmational", with a bit of backup by the star of his pic, handsome English action hero Clive Owen. Now that former av...
With the world premiere of the star-studded action thriller The International by Tom Tykwer, the 59th Berlin International Film Festival will open tomorrow, February 5, 2009 in the presence of the director and the actors Clive Owen, Ulrich Thomsen and Armin Mueller-Stahl.
Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick will open the Festival together with Minister of State and Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs Bernd Neumann and Jury President Tilda Swinton. The event will be broadcast li...
With the world premiere of the star-studded action thriller "The International" by ace German director Tom Tykwer (of "Lola Runs" fame), the 59th Berlin International Film Festival opens this evening, Febsuary 5, in the presence of the director and the actors Clive Owen, Ulrich Thomsen and Armin Mueller-Stahl. Festival Director Dieter Kosslick will ring the curtain up in conjunction with Jury President, Scottish actress Tilda Swinton. The event will be telecast liv...
Thursday, 5 February----For the Berlin Film Festival, which opens this evening, the choice of an international action thriller is an odd choice for an Opening Night Film. The Festival, which has the reputation for championing gritty, social issue-oriented films, the choice is not as strange as it first appears. THE INTERNATIONAL, a globe-trotting espionage tale starring UK heartthrob Clive Owen and Australian thrush Naomi Watts, is directed by Tom Twyker, the German wunderkind who singlehandedly...
Wednesday, 4 February--------
With the global economy reeling and the film industry in a state of disarray, all eyes are turning to the Berlin International Film Festival, which opens tomorrow, to check the pulse of the international film industry. There is no question that these are challenging times for both film sellers and film buyers. With credit tight and films underperforming at the theatrical box office due to less discretionary income, the international distribution communi...
The International Jury, presided over by Tilda Swinton,(Burn After Reading, Julia... ), will decide who is to take home the Golden Bear and the Silver Bears and the Alfred Bauer Prize in the Competition of the Berlinale 2009.
The other members of the Jury are Spanish director Isabel Coixet, director Gaston Kaboré (Burkina Faso), Swedish best-selling author Henning Mankell, director Christoph Schlingensief (Germany), director Wayne Wang (USA) and food activist and author Alice ...
Matt Hanson, director, producer and founder of the Visual Intelligence Agency, has set himself an ambitious goal, namely the production of the feature film “A Swarm of Angels” using the Open Movie principle.
Melinda Crane, moderates Berlinale Keynotes
With a media blitz not experienced before the 2008 edition of the Berlinale featured a roster of stars including but not restricted to Mick Jagger and his Rolling Stones, Madonna, Sharuk Khan, Martin Scorcese, and Jeanne Moreau as well as the most prominent German film stars and directors. As expected, the appearances by Madonna and the mega star 'King' Khan generated enthusiastic crowd scenes and a journalistic frenzy.This frenzy displaced attention from other Berlinale aspects. To name but a f...
The 58th Berlin Film Festival closed out a rather unremarkable ten day run with Andrzej Wajda's massive indictment of Russian war crimes, "Katyn". The political significance of this film, especially in Germany, was underlined by the attendance at the final gala of German Prime Minister Angela Merkel and other top level political dignitaries. Eighty year old director Wajda said that he hopes the film will help build new bridges between Germany and Poland. Considering that Poland suffe...
The European Film Market (EFM) can report upbeat results at the conclusion of the first major business event of the year. In 2008, the EFM hosted a record number of exhibitors, sales agents and industry professionals at two venues, the Martin Gropius Bau and the EFM Exhibitor Offices, as well as presented close to 1,100 screenings in cinemas around Potsdamer Platz.From the business side, this year’s Market can also report a positive balance. Many companies – including such market stalwarts...
The First Lady of Ukraine opened the reception of the Ukrainian Cinema Foundation at Adlon Kempinski Hotel Berlin Tuesday night. About 300 industry representatives and journalists attended the event which was organised with the support of Nemiroff Vodka Company. Kateryna Yushchenko underlined the importance of film promotion for the development of a national film industry. The First Lady said that after a collapse in the post soviet years, we now witness the rebirth of Ukrainian Cinema. She reme...
The star-studded international competition judgment panel under the baton of celebrated Greco-French director Constantine Costa-Gavras was reduced to a Sextet when Danish ace director, Susan Bier, and top drawer French actress, Sandrine Bonnaire, both announced their enforced withdrawal from jury duty due to inescapable commitments elsewhere. In Bier's case it was a sudden need to visit the location of the next movie she's shooting, while Bonnaire submitted her regrets due to "personal fami...
Opening of the Berlinale Talent Campus #6 with Dieter Kosslick, Dorothee Wenner, Stephen Daldry and Gustavo Santaolalla Match Factor by Maheen Zia from Pakistan winner of the Berlin Today Award 2008Yesterday evening (Saturday, Feb 9) festival director Dieter Kosslick and Campus director Dorothee Wenner opened the Berlinale Talent Campus 2008 before a crowd of ca. 600 invited guests in the Hebbel am Ufer theatre, HAU 1. Until Feb 14, 350 Talents from about 100 countries will meet with internation...
The screening of the documentary Reverse Angle: Rebellion of the Filmmakers is a great occasion to show a series of films originating from the Filmverlag der Autoren at this year's Berlinale. Alfred Holighaus, section director of Perspektive Deutsches Kino, curated the series.How does the documentary Reverse Angle: Rebellion of the Filmmakers manage to arouse interest in a not-so-old chapter of German film history?It's just like with the Rolling Stones. There's a generation of artists - funnily ...
A jury is considered independent when its members are not selected by the Berlinale. A number of independent juries award prizes at the Berlinale. The high level of quality and diversity of the films are an invitation for critical examination and discerning judgment that opens up new directions. Accordingly the independent juries award their prizes along different criteria, in accordance to the special intention linked to each award. The following prizes are awarded by independent juries du...
A young German-French jury from TV5MONDE and the German-French Youth Office (GFYO) will award the independent prize for the fifth time at this year's 58th Berlin International Film Festival. This year, the film Drifter from Sebastian Heidinger received the prize. The „Dialogue en perspective" was initiated in 2004 by the international francophone television channel TV5MONDE and the Berlinale, and is awarded in cooperation with the GFYO to a film from the section Perspektive Deutsches Kino...
The members of the Kinderjury Generation KplusJustus Paul BauchJana Marie BussmannJesper Ole EbbertTita-Antonia HagenCarl-Ludwig HauslNtozake IglesiasMax KressnerLisa Frederike LassenJoёlle MarianekLino SteinwärderNina-Liliht Völschgive the following awards:The Crystal Bear for the Best Feature Film goes to Buda Az Sharm Foru Rikht by Hana Makmalbaf (Iran/France)This film is exciting and provocative and at the same time it is very shocking. It is about a little girl who is struggling to be al...
The members of the Youth Jury in the Generation 14plus : Roman AkbarZadora EnsteHans HirschNora KubachZoё MartinLinda MoogLavan Vasuthevangive the following awards:The Crystal Bear for the best feature-length film goes to The Black Balloon by Elissa Down (Australia)We were very moved by the close to life story portraying the everyday life of an extraordinary family in this film. We were especially impressed by the way in which joyous and serious moments were expertly interwoven, and also by the...
On Thursday, the Berlinale Talent Campus #6 marked the end of another successful edition with a closing ceremony and announcement of the winner of this year's Volkswagen Score Competition.For six days, 350 up-and-coming international filmmakers were invited to the three theatres of the Hebbel am Ufer. Podium discussions with renowned film experts, excursions, screenings and workshops: over 80 events with a total of 150 experts made up this sixth Campus edition and offered the Talents, Berlinale ...
TEDDY 22 QUEER FILM AWARD - THE NOMINEES The eight members of this international jury - filmmakers and organisers of queer film festivals - view films within the framework of all programs of the Berlinale which have queer context.Three films are nominated for each category and one receives a TEDDY for best feature film, best documentary film and the best short film, each with a cash award of Euro 3,000.Members of the Jury:Basil Tsiokos - NewFest: The New York LGBT Film Festival (New York , USA,)...
CINEMA TOTAL BERLIN EDITIONHungarian film art during the berlinale Film as fine art WITH ULRICH GREGOR ISTVAN SZABO UDO KIER Collegium Hungaricum BerlinDorotheenstr. 12, 10117 Berlin-Mitte5 pmCINEMA TOTAL - Street ScreeningGéza M. Tóth: ERGOFor the first time on a 8x6 meter projectionscreen: CHB displays its show-window to Berlin. By the occasion of this street-screening presentation we project the newest animation film of Oscar-Price nominnee Géza M. Tóth.6.30 pmexhibition OPENINGCinema Tot...
