At this year's Berlinale Keynotes, members of the digital media avantgarde - including top producers from the international games industry, Wikinomics pioneers and Open Movie directors - will discuss some of the most challenging questions facing the film industry. In the current entertainment industry, the internet is the new key medium and games are the most important format. In view of the rapid developments in digital technology, the film industry is facing ever growing challenges and new for...
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 ...
The biggest movie star in the world gave a press conference today and although the festival programers have given the film a prime slot in its program, the media in attendance was pretty sparse. No, it wasn't Tom Cruise or Daniel Day-Lewis, but Shah Rukh Khan. Bollywood long surpased Hollywood as the largest film factory in the world. "Om Shanti Om", directed by Farah Khan and produced by the star, is at once a romantic film and a tribute to the memory of 70s Bollywood. In an endless s...
The Elite Squad, directed by Jose Padilha has won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival. Reza Naji won best actor for The Song of Sparrows and Sally Hawkins picked up the best actress prize for the Mike Leigh directed Happy-Go-Lucky.The 58th incarnation of the festival saw the festival assume a new direction. There were decidedly less stars than in 2007 when the likes of Matt Damon put in an appearance. And the star vehicles this year were more in line with the artistic, edgy feel tha...
The final class production of the fest, "The Other Boleyn Girl", (Non competition) an opulent costume drama set at the court of the most famous of all British Kings, Henry VIII, (who reigned from 1509 - 1547) has echoes reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood when the likes of eminently upper crust Englishmen such as George Sanders played sneering Nazi officers, and flamboyant Australians like Errol Flynn portrayed gunslingers in Dodge City --and never mind the displaced accents!Â...
There are Stars and there Super-Stars, then there is MADONNA... a kind of media SuperNova, who blows other stars away, sends photogs scurrying like cockroaches in heat, and attracts incredible throngs of gawkers even when she isn't trying to outrage the Bourgeois and seems to be on her best behavior. The forty-nine year old Queen of Pop arrived in Berlin on Wednesday looking very trim in a smart, conservative black dress, six inch high heels, and her blonde tresses parted neatly in the middle. T...
The audience has decided: the 10th Panorama Audience Award goes to Lemon Tree (Israel/Germany/France 2008) directed by Eran Riklis.The PanoramaAudienceAward has existed since 1999. Movie-goers of the 58th Berlin International Film Festival were asked to cast their ballot cards or vote online for the films screened in the Panorama section. The attendance was overwhelming. Over 20.000 votes were cast and counted. This year the Panorama presented 52 features in total, including 19 films from ...
A Â 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. Â 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 58th Berlin International Film Festival comes to a glamorous close with the Award Ceremony on Saturday, February 16. 1.600 guests are invited to the ceremony in the Berlinale Palast where, from 7 pm onwards, the International Jury, presided by jury president Costa-Gavras, will announce the winners of the Golden and the Silver Bears, as well as the Best First Feature Award. The performance of jazz trumpeter Till Brönner will be the highlight of the evening's musical programme, moderator Katr...
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 ...
February 15: Austrian director Götz Spielmann’s REVANCHE has won the Europa Cinemas Label as Best European film in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section, it was announced today by the jury of four Europa Cinemas exhibitors. The Label will be awarded this evening. This marks the fourth year that the Europa Cinemas Label has been awarded at Berlin, and complements the Labels awarded at the Giornate degli Autori section in Venice, the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes and Karlov...
A tendency to decline but not everywhere: this sums up the 2007 trend as regards cinema audiences. The exact opposite of 2006, where the plus sign was the general rule, although, there again, with some exceptions.This is the picture that emerges from the data collected by MEDIA Salles who, as last year, have anticipated the announcement of the 2007 figures on cinemagoing in Europe to the Berlin Festival, during the presentation of the "European Cinema Yearbook - 2007 final edition"...
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,)...
More than 350 international media experts attended the second Berlinale Keynotes organized by the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the Berlin International Film Festival and held in the Palmenhof at Berlin's Potsdamer Platz on Tuesday. Under the motto "The Age of Collaboration," the Keynotes focused on new creative and strategic alliances between film, games and Web 2.0 in the age of Wikinomics and games. The event was officially opened by Medienboard co-managing director Petra Müll...
On Wednesday, 13 February 2008, the FilmFestival Cottbus offers its annual presentation at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival. Venue is the Federal Office of the State of Brandenburg in the German capital city.The East European Brunch is a now traditional Berlinale meeting-point for representatives of the film and media branches in East and West, and is an ideal opportunity for Cottbus Festival Director Roland Rust to outline the focal themes of the 2008 FilmFestival Cottbus later this ...
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...
The Banja Luka International Film Festival held a nice reception during Berlinale on February 13 at the HomeBase Lounge (Postdamer Platz)Banja Luka International Film Festival will take place in the city of Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina) from 2nd to 9th of May, 2008. Approximately forty European and films from countries from all around the world will be shown.Even though there is the Academy of Arts in Banja Luka where film and theater artists gain their knowledge, the city itself did not ...
First international presentation of the Ukrainian Cinema Foundation at the 58th Berlin International Film FestivalFor the first time the Ukrainian Cinema Foundation gives an overview of the country´s filmic works at the European Film Market. The presentation will be held under the chairmanship of Mrs. Kateryna Yushchenko, Ukraine's First Lady and Head of the Supervisory Council of the International Charitable Fund "Ukraine-3000". Mrs. Kateryna Yushchenko also plans to attend the Ber...
With the world premiere of the Rolling Stones concert film, Shine a Light by Oscar-winner Martin Scorsese, the 58th Berlin International Film Festival will open tomorrow, February 7, 2008. Director Martin Scorsese, and Stones Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ron Wood are all coming to Berlin to attend this big event. Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick will open the Festival together with Minister of State and Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs Bernd Neumann, Governing Mayo...