The EFM reports almost 40,000 visits during the first half of the European Film Market. At peak times on Sunday, more than 2,400 international industry attendees poured into the Martin-Gropius-Bau. This is a new record compared with 2009, which registered 1,738 trade professionals. EFM Director Beki Probst expressed her delight at the positive, energizing atmosphere in the Martin-Gropius-Bau and the Marriott: “People are coming in large numbers, the choice is enormous, the cinemas are full, th...
While Bollywood is among the most recognizable cinema genres in the world (and rivals Hollywood in its prolific popularity), there is another Indian cinema, of a more independent stripe, that is emerging. The Berlinale is focusing on these groundbreaking films that tackle serious and poetic subjects, with nary a dancing girl in sight.
One of the films generating the most excitement and interest is THE MAN BEYOND THE BRIDGE, a bittersweet dramatic film that has already captured t...
While there is certainly a network of gay film festivals around the globe, the Berlinale (in particular the Panorama section) is considered ground zero for programmers and distributors interested in films with a gay persuasion. The Festival not only proudly showcases the work but also is the only major A list festival to give out a specific award for gay cinema, the legendary Teddy Awards. The Teddys celebrate their 24th anniversary this year as the "gay Oscar".
Feature...
With a record number of sales companies participating at this year's European Film Market (along with an obvious drop in the number of buyers), it is heartening to hear that there are new companies coming into the fold, attempting to re-energize the sales sector and infuse it with new blood and new energy.
A company that is coming on strong at the Market is CINESAVVY, a new sales and production company based in Toronto. The buzz surrounding this new kid on the block is the high-profile c...
Jonah and the Vicarious Nature of Homesickness by Bryn Chainey wins the Berlin Today Award 2010
Festival Director Dieter Kosslick, together with the heads of the Campus, Matthijs Wouter Knol and Christine Tröstrum, director Isabel Coixet and film composer Alexandre Desplat, opened the Berlinale Talent Campus 2010 on Saturday evening (13.2) in the Theater Hebbel am Ufer. Until February 18, 350 Talents from 95 countries will meet with renowned international experts at the Hebbel am Ufer...
On the occasion of the 60th International Film Festval Berlin (Berlinale), FilmFestival Cottbus - Festival of East European Cinema and the East-West Co-Production market Connecting Cottbus are going to put emphasis on East European film with a day of activities on Feb. 17th, 2010.
Focal point of the "Cottbus-Day" will be the traditional East European Brunch in the Embassy of the State of Brandenburg. The Cottbus reception also serves as a kick-off for the 20th edition of the ...
Side by Side LGBT International Film Festival receives prize from the Teddy Award Foundation at this years 60th Berlin International Film Festival.
The Teddy Award Foundation has awarded Russia's first annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) film festival Side by Side a monetary prize of 2000 Euros. The prize was awarded on the opening evening of the 24th Teddy Award by Klaus Mabel Aschenneller director of the Teddy Award Foundation in recognition of Side by Side'...
by Alex Deleon for www.filmfestivals.com
Scorcese's SHUTTER ISLAND is a P.U. production from Paramount --- a film to commit suicide over after use. But Ben Kingley and Max Van Sydow have at last found their ecological niches in cinema history --
as -- uncompromising ultimate GHOULS!
Watch the Trailer on this site
I would have ankled this piece of unmitigated water torture after thirty minutes, but I was wedged into a balcony seat at the Fri...
The Berlinale, because of its history and Berlin's geographic location as the nexus between Western and Eastern Europe, has become an important place for Eastern European organizations to make announcements and for Eastern European films to be showcased.
One of the oldest film festivals in Europe, Film Festival Zlin in the Czech Republic, will kick off its 50th anniversary celebration in Berlin on Tuesday evening, 16 February with a cocktail reception at the Czech Republic Embassy...
As has become a pleasant habit here at the Berlinale, Asian cinema is highly prominent in all sections of the Festival. The Berlinale has long been the international launching pad for films and filmmakers from the Far East. The Festival is credited with giving their first international recognition to such celebrated filmmakers as Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou, Kim Ki-Duk, Johnnie To and Chan Wook Park. Ang Lee's debut film PUSHING HANDS premiered in Berlin and Lee eventually went on to win ...
Ten of Europe's most notable young actors are presented by European Film Promotion (EFP) for the 13th edition of SHOOTING STARS launched at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival. They present a broad range of countries with three of the actors appearing in films in official selection, two are screened in competition.
Chosen by a high-profile jury of film industry professionals, the SHOOTING STARS actors are primed for a weekend of
round-the-clock-activities, including one-to-one ...
One of German cinema's most famous and respected actresses, Hanna Schygulla, is receiving a multi-film hommage as part of this year's 60th anniversary celebrations of the Berlinale. This iconic actress, who is most associated with the work of German pioneering director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, has been a prolific actress since the 1960s and is one of the only German talents known around the world for her vivid acting style.
Hanna Schygulla was born in 1925 in Königshütte, Upper ...
As part of the sixtieth birthday celebration, the Berlinale is hosting the world premiere of TRACE OF THE BEARS (Spur Der Baren), a German documentary by Berlin-based Zero Film, that traces the history of one of the world's great film events. While other A-list festivals such as Cannes or Venice are artistic, economic and tourist events, the Berlinale is unique for its political dimensions and its highly developed sense of social and world consciousness.
The Festival’s history r...
In a first for the Berlinale, a film from Iraq had its world premiere last evening in the Panorama section. SON OF BABYLON, co-written and directed by Mohamed Al-Daradji, is a stirring drama about coming to terms with tragedy and moving forward despite the burden of personal loss. Filmed in stark poetic set pieces, the film follows the journey of a Kurdish grandmother and her precocious grandson as they travel (mostly on foot) to discover the fate of the boy's father, who has been miss...
A flashy two page center spread in the popular daily tabloid BERLIN KURIER offers a list of "Sixty Facts about the 60th Birthday" of the Berlin Film Festival, which is tantamount to listing sixty good reasons not to miss this one. The spread is adorned with a top to bottom leggy photo of a winsomely smiling Jessica Alba, star of Michael Winterbottom's "The Killer Inside Me", and smaller shots spaced around the layout of Leonardo Dicaprio, who will be here to promote the new...
One of the anticipated titles having its International Premiere at the Berlinale today is HOWL, one of the hits of last month's Sundance Film Festival. More than 50 years after its initial publication, the tone poem HOWL is still a shocking bit of humanism, a cry for tolerance and a yell for individual self-expression. The poem's author, the beat poet Allen Ginsberg, remained a controversial figure his entire life. The impact of this envelope-pushing literary classic and the bohemian ph...
In what has to be one of the most bizarre red carpet scenarios in many a moon, the Berlinale is bracing for the buzz storm surrounding the world premiere of THE GHOST WRITER, the latest film from director Roman Polanski. And while the stars of the film, Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan will officiously walk the red carpet at the Berlinale Palast this evening, the film's celebrated director remains under house arrest in his ski villa in Switzerland.
Of course, this is not t...
As birthdays go, 60 is not quite as significant as 50 or 75, but it seems that anytime a person or an event reaches a milestone that involves a 0, it is an opportunity for reflection on the past. For its 60th anniversary, the Berlinale is both looking back and looking forward, with a number of retrospective programs as well as ambitious new ones that will define the Festival for decades to come.
First a look backwards....the Festival was established in 1951 as a kind of cold wa...
The Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival, affectionately called the Berlinale, has always been devoted to stories about people on the edge. The program strand, which was founded by legendary archivist and distributor Manfred Salzgeber and continues under the exquisite taste of current director Wieland Speck, is also home to the gay and lesbian films that will inevitably cause a stir and make their mark at gay film festivals around the world.
It could be s...
EDN, European Documentary Network, is hosting the Meet the Docs stand at The European Film Market in Berlin. Meet the Docs is a specifically service dedicated to the documentary industry at EFM, which takes place on February 11-21, 2010 in connection with the Berlinale.
As a central connection platform, Meet the Docs aims to promote networking and exchange among buyers, sellers, directors and producers of documentaries. At the EFM 2010, the Meet the Docs stand will be located in the Martin-Gr...
Like many displaced Europeans during the Nazi occupation of much of Europe, the French filmmaker Jean Renoir spent the war years (and sometime afterwards) in the United States. His sojourn in the hills of Hollywood was not especially a positive one. Like other auteurs, he was appalled by the Hollywood factory system and the condescending attitude towards the director. In France he was a God, in America he was a worker for hire.
However, from this brief American period comes one ...
The 2010 edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, a film event second in importance only to Cannes, begins on Thursday evening with the International Premiere of a new Chinese film. APART TOGETHER by Tuan Yuan will kick off the festivities at the Berlinale Palast, the showcase cinema in Potsdamer Platz.
Chinese cinema has been in the ascendant as the country itself flexes its political and economic muscle. However not all the press has been positive. Last month, the Ch...
The International Jury, presided over by Werner Herzog, will decide who is to take home the Golden Bear and the Silver Bears as well as the Alfred Bauer Prize in the Competition of the Berlinale 2010.
The other members of the Jury are Francesca Comencini, Nuruddin Farah, Cornelia Froboess, José Maria Morales, Yu Nan and Renée Zellweger
As one of the most significant personalities of New German Cinema, Werner Herzog has influenced an entire generation of filmmakers. In his almost 50-year ...
For the 60th anniversary of the Berlin International Film Festival, the Retrospective takes a look back at the long history of the festival with a programme curated by David Thomson. Retrospective
section head Rainer Rother explains why the respected film critic was
his favourite candidate for the job, what fascinated him about
Thomson's selection of films and how cinema has become freer and richer
over the years.
Janus Dissing Rathke in Niels Arden Oplev's Drømmen: this year's...
A world in pieces: the films of the 40th Berlinale Forum
In its 40th year, the Berlinale Forum features a selection of films that capture the mood of the times in a sensitive way. Rarely have there been, in feature films and documentaries alike, as many people caught in insolvable conflicts, faced with essential decisions or staring into the abyss as in this year’s selection of films.
Domestic filmmaking makes its presence felt in the programme in a manner exciting, varied and surprising...
Chatelin Bruno 
