Monday, February 19------In a surprise twist, a Chinese film has won the Berlinale Golden Bear, the Berlin Film Festival's highest honor. TUYA'S MARRIAGE by Chinese director Wang Quan'an won the Festival's top prize, which was announced with other awards at the Festival's closing ceremony on Saturday evening. The film, the story of a woman living in rural northwestern Mongolia and facing pressure to abandon her life as a shepherd, did not figure on most critics' pred...
Saturday, February 17--- The Berlinale Competition section closes with the world premiere of ANGEL, the latest film from international favorite François Ozon (8 WOMEN). The film, a French-Belgian-British co-production, is the French director's first film in English., Set in England at the beginning of the 20th Century, the film portrays the rise and fall of a young woman from humble beginnings, who breaks into the highest echelons of society as an author. Romola Garai stars as the head-...
Wednesday, February 7----Berlin has always been hospitable to American indies, with the sidebar sections Panorama and Forum generally showcasing most of the newest works from filmmakers working "off-Hollywood". However, this year, the Berlinale Competition boasts two highly anticipated bigger budget American independent films, which are in the running with their Hollywood bretheren for the Golden Bear (the Berlinale's top honor).
Gregory Nava, a veteran indie filmmaker whose 1983 film EL NORTE...
Monday, February 5----While the Berlin Film Festival, which opens on Thursday evening, is certainly an international affair, it has traditionally been one of the important showcases for new European cinema. With a French film opening the prestigious Berlinale Competition section (LA VIE EN ROSE by Olivier Dahan) and top-flight French and UK films included this year (see earlier stories), the rest of Europe gets equal billing as the Festival presents mainly world premieres from some of Europe's ...
Friday, February 2----Two British films receiving their international premieres are prominently featured in the Competition Section of the Berlin Film Festival, which opens this coming Thursday.
NOTES ON A SCANDAL, features two tasty (and Oscar-nominated) performances by Dame Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett as, respectively, a sexually repressed olderschool teacher who blackmails a younger teacher who is having a secret affair with a young male student. The psycho-sexual thriller with lesbian o...
Thursday, February 1----With a musical biopic of legendary French chanteuse Edith Piaf opening the 57th edition of the Berlin Film Festival next week, the love affair of the Berlinale with French cinema is also evident in the prominent showcasing of two French film masters in the Competition Section.
Veteran director Jacques Rivette will present the world premiere of NE TOUCHEZ PAS LA HACHE (Don’t Touch The Ax), an adaptation of a Balzac novella about a beautiful duchess who wards off the ...
