'Filth' screens at Berlin's Panorama

'Transsiberian' joins festival lineup

By ED MEZA

Madonna

Madonna's directorial debut, "Filth and Wisdom," starring Stephen Graham and Richard E. Grant, and Brad Anderson's "Transsiberian," with Woody Harrelson and Eduardo Noriega, will be among the titles unspooling in the Berlin Film Festival's Panorama sidebar.

Berlinale organizers Thursday announced the first 13 titles selected in the popular arthouse section.

Panorama seeks to present the highest-profile films of the coming arthouse season. Docs will again make a strong showing -- from a total of 50 films, about a third will be docus.

Taiwanese director Zero Chou, who won the Berlinale's gay and lesbian Teddy Award in 2007 for "Spider Lilies," is back with "Drifting Flowers."

Also unspooling are John Crowley's "Boy A," starring Andrew Garfield as a young ex-con released from prison after serving time for a murder he committed as a child; "Chiko," Ozguer Yildirim's drama about Turkish teens growing up in Hamburg's immigrant ghetto; Laetitia Masson's French entry "Coupable," starring Helene Fillieres and Jeremie Renier; and, from Spain, Isidro Ortiz’s "Eskalofrio" and "Before Fall" by Javier Gutierrez.

Canada's Bruce LaBruce returns with his Berlin-set gay zombie movie and upcoming Sundance screener "Otto or Up With Dead People," while Teona Strugar Mitevska is repping Macedonia with "I Am From Titov Veles."

The three remaining Panorama titles are "Mare, Our Love Story" by Brazil's Lucia Murat; "Megane" by Japan's Naoko Ogigami; and "The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela" by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson, from Iceland.

More than 20,000 moviegoers are expected to participate in the Panorama Audience Awards, which are presented Feb. 17.

The full Panorama lineup will be announced in January.

The Berlinale runs Feb. 7-17.