'Letters,' 'Walker' head to Berlin

Both pics will screen out of competition.

Other films include Gregory Nava's "Bordertown," which examines a series of murders of Mexican women in the border town of Ciudad Juarez in the early 1990s. Pic stars Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas; latter's second directorial effort, "El camino de los Ingleses" (Summer Rain), is screening in the Berlinale's Panorama section.

German-Austrian co-production "Die faelscher" (The Counterfeiter) from Stefan Ruzowitzky ("Anatomy") offers yet another German tale of WWII in what has become a tradition for Berlin. Pic recounts the true story of a Jewish con artist forced to counterfeit money for the Nazis.

French directors Jacques Rivette and Andre Techine will compete with their latest works, "Ne touchez pas la hache" (Don't Touch the Ax) and "Les Temoins" (The Witnesses), respectively, adding two more Gallic pics to the competition, which kicks off Feb. 8 with Edith Piaf biopic "La Vie en rose."

Rivette's film, an adaptation of a novella by Honore de Balzac, stars Guillaume Depardieu and Jeanne Balibar in a love story about a duchess who wards off the advances of a military officer.

Set in the 1980s, "Les Temoins" explores the emergence of AIDS. Emmanuelle Beart and Michel Blanc star.

Italy's "In memoria di me" (In Memory of Myself), by Saverio Costanzo ("Private"), follows a young man (Christo Jivkov) overcome by doubt after he enters a Jesuit monastery in Venice.

Czech-Slovakian co-prod "Obsluhoval jsem anglickeho krale" (I Served the King of England), from Czech helmer Jiri Menzel (whose "Larks on a String" won the Golden Bear in 1990), chronicles two decades of European history from the viewpoint of a Prague waiter. German Silver Bear winner Julia Jentsch ("Sophie Scholl: The Final Days") and Ivan Barnev star.

The fest has so far announced 15 of the 26 titles screening in the Competition section.

Meanwhile, the Berlinale's Intl. Forum of New Cinema sidebar, which showcases avant garde and experimental works and documentaries, has announced 15 titles. These include "Tuli (The Circumciser)," Filipino helmer Auraeus Solito's coming-of-age tale of a young woman growing up in an isolated Philippine community. Solito last year won the Berlinale's Teddy gay and lesbian award as well as the Kinderfilmfest Grand Prix with "The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros."

Also unspooling in the section are Srdan Golubovic's Serbian-German-Hungarian co-prod "Klopka" (The Trap), about a father who decides to have himself killed in order to save his son; and "Pas douce" (A Parting Shot), Jeanne Waltz's French-Swiss work about a disturbed nurse who shoots a boy in the woods and later is forced to confront him at the hospital.

Canadian filmmaker Catherine Martin will have two complementary works in the sidebar, "L'Esprit de lieux" (The Spirit of Places) and "Dans les villes" (In the Cities), which explore rural and urban Quebec, respectively.

Additional Forum screeners include "Jagdhunde," Ann-Kristin Reyels (Germany); "Dol," Hiner Saleem (Kurdistan-France-Germany); "El telon de azucar (The Sugar Curtain), Camila Guzman Urzua (Spain-France); "Apa khabar orang kampung" (Village People Radio Show), Amir Muhammad (Malaysia); "Don," Farhan Akthtar (India); "Meng na li sha" (Mona Lisa), Li Ying (China/Japan); "Ichijiku no kao" (Faces of a Fig Tree), Momoi Kaori (Japan); "Kurz davor ist es passiert," Anja Salomonowitz (Austria); "A.K.A. Nikki S. Lee," Nikki S. Lee (U.S.); and "Senkyo" (Campaign), Kazuhiro Soda (U.S.)