A tragic screen portrait of Edith Piaf kicks off the Berlin Film
Festival on Thursday, a fitting opening to a competition where
women, many of them in trouble, play a central role. Asia's four
competition entries include a Chinese film Lost in
Beijing.
Alongside them in the main competition lineup of 26 films comes
the theme of war, with Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo
Jima, Israeli production Beaufort, and The
Counterfeiters, about a Nazi plan to ruin Britain's
economy.
Asia and Latin America feature strongly in a typically
international selection of films, and Berlin hopes to garnish its
reputation for hard hitting world cinema with a sprinkling of
Hollywood stars on the red carpet.
Dieter Kosslick, the festival's director, hopes that La Vie
En Rose, starring Marion Cotillard as Piaf from the age of 20
until her death at 47, will solve the problem of opening films that
have tended to be critical flops.
Singer of classic ballads like La vie en rose and
Non, je ne regrette rien, Piaf rose from poverty to
superstardom, but the path was strewn with tragedy, including the
death in a plane crash of her lover.
Also in competition is Yella, by German director
Christian Petzold, about a young woman from ex-communist East
Germany whose old life continues to haunt her as she seeks work in
the western part of the country to escape a wretched marriage.
In Irina Palm, the real-life singer and actress
Marianne Faithfull plays a 50-year-widow who, in a desperate search
for cash, unwittingly accepts a job in a sex club.
Tuya's Marriage, from China, is about a woman's search
for a new partner who can take care of her and her sick ex-husband,
while Angel, the closing film, plots the rise and fall of
a young woman in early 20th Century England.
In Notes On a Scandal actresses Judi Dench and Cate
Blanchett play teachers whose relationship turns sour. Both
performers are nominated for Oscars -- Dench for best actress and
Blanchett for best supporting actress.
They are expected to be joined in Berlin by fellow Academy Award
nominee Eastwood, whose Letters from Iwo Jima is up for
best picture and best director. Also due to be in Berlin are Sharon
Stone, Lauren Bacall, Robert De Niro, and Matt Damon.
Asia's four competition entries include Lost in
Beijing, which has been granted a film license yesterday by
the China Film Bureau, a required step before it can be screened in
Berlin.
Also in competition is I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK, a
South Korean entry featuring pop star Rain in his movie debut.
Berlin, with a booming film market, ranks behind only Cannes in
terms of commercial clout, although it lacks Venice's glamour.
Kosslick said he would work hard this year to make more seats
available to the public, who flock to see films in the main
competition and other sections.
"We've got to create more opportunities for the public because
the Berlinale is a festival for the public," he told German radio
this week. "And if we ever forget that principle, that will be the
end of the Berlinale."
He also renewed criticism of newer festivals, like Dubai and
Rome, which he said used cash to lure Hollywood stars.
"If we started to pay stars for appearances, then we'd go
bankrupt by Friday evening and the Berlinale would last just 2-1/2
days." The festival ends on February 18.
?
(Agencies via CRI.cn February 8, 2008)
