If one indicator of a festival's status nowadays is the number of world premieres it manages to attract, the 56th Berlin Film Festival wins in spades.
Of its 19 competition titles during the fest's run Feb. 9-19, a record 17 will be making their global bows in the modernistic, glass-fronted Berlinale Palast in Potsdamer Platz, including a fair sprinkling of first-time features and the latest from established helmers such as Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, Claude Chabrol and Michael Winterbottom.
On paper at least, this year's Official Selection could well turn out to be the most satisfying so far from fest director Dieter Kosslick, who last got the balance just about right in 2004.
Kosslick is well aware of the difficult task that any fest head faces these days. The battle for titles, even by heavyweight events like Berlin, Cannes and Venice, becomes tougher every year, added to which the Berlinale -- held in the country's capital, unlike Cannes or Venice -- has to satisfy not just the media and industryites but also a demanding public in one of Europe's most artistically vibrant cities.
"I just want to do a different program from one you can see in cinemas," says Kosslick, commenting on the high number of world preems this year in competition.
He's done it partly by quietly shifting all U.S. pics that aren't world preems ("Capote," "Syriana," "The New World") into noncompeting slots. Previously, and especially under Kosslick's predecessor, Moritz de Hadeln, the competition generally included U.S. titles that had previously been released Stateside or were preemed in Sundance.
That way, Kosslick can still get stars on his red carpet without making his competition look like secondhand goods. It also definitively unhooks any prize-giving from the Oscar selection hoopla, which, following the Academy's shift to earlier dates, now takes place at the same time as the Berlinale.
It's a high-stakes gamble, but Kosslick has managed to snag two world preems of U.S. pics, both by name directors in their early 80s, for competition.
Set for Stateside release in June, Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion" is an ensembler inspired by Garrison Keillor's long-running radio show based in Minnesota, with a tony cast including Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson and Keillor himself.
Lumet's "Find Me Guilty," a drama based on the longest-running Mafia trial in U.S. history, features Annabella Sciorra and, as self-defending mobster Jack DiNorscio, none other than Vin Diesel, who also co-produced. Pic is set to go out on limited release in the U.S. in March.
Also sure to attract media attention will be the world preem, out of competition, of "V for Vendetta," adapted by the Wachowski brothers from a graphic novel set in a futuristic, fascistic U.K. and helmed by James McTeigue, an a.d. on the "Matrix" pics. Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving star in the Studio Babelsberg-shot production, released by Warners mid-March.
The meat-and-potatoes aspect of Kosslick's competition is, as in past years, heavily skewed toward Euro fare, with a typically Berlinale sociopolitical edge. Sure to go down well with festgoers is Winterbottom's hot-off-the-press docudrama "The Road to Guantanamo," about three U.K. Muslims held without charge for three years at the U.S.-run prison camp.
Fellow Brit Marc Evans competes alongside Winterbottom with "Snow Cake," an unusual love story between a car crash victim and an autistic woman, produced by Winterbottom's shingle Revolution Films. The Alan Rickman/ Sigourney Weaver starrer opens the fest Feb. 9 -- a "smaller but more substantial" movie than usual, according to Kosslick, for an often fraught slot in any festival's sked.
With only one film (rather than the usual three or so) from France this year -- Chabrol's political thriller "Comedy of Power," with Isabelle Huppert -- the lineup is heavy with German-language fare, including four productions from Germany itself.
These are headlined by exorcism pic "Requiem" and love triangler "Longing," Valeska Grisebach's much-awaited feature debut, plus one from Austria, "Slumming," a black comedy about two yuppies, by one-time documaker Michael Glawogger.
Asian cinema, flagged out of competition by Chen Kaige's splashy fantasy "The Promise" (showing in its shorter, Western cut), is repped by Thai auteur Pen-ek Ratanaruang (psychothriller "Invisible Waves") and Hong Kong maverick Edmond Pang ("Isabella"), latter making his first appearance in a major festival's competition.
More notable, however, is the presence of Iran, a regular in the Berlinale's Kinderfilmfest but appearing in competition for the first time in 30 years. "Offside," by Cannes laureate Jafar Panahi ("The White Balloon"), centers on a young woman arrested for sneaking in to watch a soccer match disguised as a man, while Rafi Pitt's neorealistic "It's Winter," is set among the denizens of Tehran's outskirts.
Last year, Kosslick drew heavy criticism, especially from local press, for a lineup that generally failed to translate social issues into entertaining or dramatically meaty fare. This year, he claims there's plenty for everyone -- from psychodramas (Australia's "Candy," starring Heath Ledger) through road movies (German "The Elementary Particles" by Oskar Roehler) to an offbeat item like "Soap," a tragicomic relationship movie between a beauty-parlor owner and a transsexual, by Danish first-timer Pernille Fischer Christensen.
More than most other fests, however, the Berlinale has always been more than the sum of just of its Official Selection, with the 21-year-old Panorama often containing the fest's surprise hits (such as last year's "Transamerica") or cutting-edge movies. Among its 50-odd features, Panorama boss Wieland Speck identifies several titles this year that look set to raise eyebrows, being atypical of their directors.
Top of the list must come prolific Japanese maverick Takashi Miike's "Big Bang Love, Juvenile A," which stirs some steamy homoeroticism into the helmer's favorite gangster genre, this time largely set inside a prison. Sweden's Lukas Moodysson ("Show Me Love") also looks set to surprise with "Container," an offbeat, B&W, vid-heavy study of a transgendered man, while German actor-director Detlev Buck essays a serious vein for the first time with "Tough Enough," about a guy who moves from a posh district of Berlin to a tougher, multicultural nabe.
In general, Panorama's flagship movies, grouped in its Specials section, are lighter and more accessible this year, from its dryly humorous opener, Daniel Burman's "Family Law," about an Argentine lawyer's relationship with his father, through Christian Vincent's fluffy French comedy, "4 Stars," set in summertime Cannes, to Dominik Graf's "The Red Cockatoo," based around a dance bar in early '60s Dresden, and Mary Harron's "The Notorious Bettie Page," with Gretchen Mol as the '50s U.S. pinup.
As a whole, Panorama remains the festival's heart and soul for the home crowd, with its eclectic mix of politically edgy and sexually adventurous fare (with a pronounced gay/transgendered bent) reflecting the city's adventurous character.
In a year when Italian movies are almost absent from the fest, Speck gleefully selects one picture, "Bye Bye Berlusconi!," as certain to push the envelope. Helmed not by an Italian but by German actor-scripter Jan Henrik Stahlberg (black comedy "Quiet as a Mouse"), pic centers on an indie film crew trying (rather unsuccessfully) to make a movie about Berlusconi being kidnapped.
Contact Derek Elley at
derek.elley@variety.com