Berlin film festival: Chinese films up against strong field, including Netflix drama, for Golden Bear
- Wang Xiaoshuai’s So Long, My Son and Zhang Yimou’s One Second are among 17 films vying for the Berlinale’s Golden and Silver Bear prizes
- A record seven films directed by women are in the running, including Netflix’s Elisa and Marcela by Isabel Coixet
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New films starring Diane Kruger, Martin Freeman and Catherine Deneuve and features directed by Hollywood actors Jonah Hill and Casey Affleck will take the spotlight at next month’s Berlin film festival.
China will be represented in competition with two features, One Second by Zhang Yimou and So Long, My Son by festival favourite Wang Xiaoshuai.
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The 11-day Berlinale, now in its 69th year, figures along with Cannes and Venice among Europe’s A-list festivals. It will present some 400 films from around the world before wrapping up on February 17.
This year’s edition will be the last led by Dieter Kosslick, who is handing over the reins after 18 years.
“The audio-visual world is in major, major turmoil and we’ll have to see where the journey takes us,” Kosslick, 70, says, referring to competition from streaming giants such as Netflix.
“But I think in [the] future, film festivals will be more important than ever because you will see movies that you can’t see anywhere else [on a big screen]. I think [streaming and festivals] will coexist.”
Seventeen films will vie for the Berlinale’s Golden and Silver Bear prizes, including a record seven by female directors such as Polish veteran Agnieszka Holland and Denmark’s Lone Scherfig (An Education).
Scherfig will open the festival on February 7 with the bittersweet drama The Kindness of Strangers set in New York and starring Zoe Kazan, Andreas Riseborough and Bill Nighy.
French star Juliette Binoche will lead a jury including fellow Oscar winner Sebastian Lelio of Chile (A Fantastic Woman), British actress/director/producer Trudie Styler, Museum of Modern Art curator Rajendra Roy, German actress Sandra Hueller (Toni Erdmann) and US critic Justin Chang.
Kruger and Freeman are expected on Berlin’s red carpet for the premiere of Israeli spy thriller The Operative by Yuval Adler.
Outside the main showcase, Affleck will premiere Light of My Life, a dystopian drama starring Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale) and set in a society without women.
Hill’s directorial debut Mid90s will also screen in the Panorama sidebar section alongside Skin, starring Jamie Bell, about the US neo-Nazi scene and The Souvenir, featuring Tilda Swinton and her real-life daughter Honor Swinton Byrne.
Deneuve leads the cast of Farewell to the Night, directed by Andre Techine and screening out of competition.
Turkish-German director Fatih Akin, who won a Golden Globe last year for his terrorism drama In the Fade starring Kruger, will premiere The Golden Glove, about a killer in his hometown Hamburg.
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After winning the Golden Lion top prize at the Venice International Film Festival in September with Roma, Netflix will enter the fray in Berlin for the first time with Elisa and Marcela by Spain’s Isabel Coixet.
