GERMANY: Berlin readies for the 57th Berlinale Film Festival

Berlinale, the Berlin Film Festival is kicking off in just a few days time and preparations in the city are in override. The festival will open on Thursday (February 8) with a biopic about the French singer Edith Piaf which the event's director hopes will leave audiences happy and banish past memories of poorly-received opening films. A film about autism, a controversy over a movie's political message and a no-show from major stars have marred the opening nights of the Berlinale festival in recent years. Festival director Dieter Kosslick told Reuters he is confident that Olivier Dahan's film about the life of the famous French chanteuse will be well-received, setting the tone for the 57th Berlinale. "La Vie en Rose", starring Marion Contillard as Piaf, will make its world premiere at the festival, recounting the rollercoaster life of the husky-voiced singer who died in 1963. The cast also includes Gerard Depardieu. Reeling off a list of confirmed guests, Kosslick dismissed criticism that the Berlinale -- which ranks alongside Venice and Cannes as one of the three major European film festivals -- lacks the power to draw in the big stars. "There is always some criticism that there are not enough stars or too many American stars: this is the usual festival business," he said. "I am absolutely confident that we have enough stars on the red carpet." While the choice for the opening film may be less controversial than previous years, Kosslick said the event would still include among its 360 films some of the more serious pictures for which the event has become known. "I think we have a very balanced competition this year, if you look we have very politically driven movies, we have some very tough, hard movies but we also have some very funny, touching comedies, and I am happy with the mixture," the festival director said. A theme for 2007 was the struggle of the individual with his environment and the forces within it, Kosslick added. Competing for the festival's Golden Bear award are Germany's "Yella" about an unemployed woman escaping her unhappy marriage and a Belgian-British-German co-production "Irina Palm", starring British singer and actress Marianne Faithfull as a 50-year-old widow who unwittingly takes a job in a sex club. The competition section also features Vengeance-trilogy director Park Chan-Wook's new romantic comedy "I'm a Cyborg but That's OK", starring Korean pop star Rain, a South African film about the life-changing relationship of a racist prison guard and Nelson Mandela, and has two Chinese entries, "Tuya's Marriage" and "Ping Guo". The Berlinale will again draw a clutch of major Hollywood stars, Kosslick promised. Confirmed guests include actors-turned-directors Clint Eastwood and Robert De Niro as well as Jennifer Lopez, Sharon Stone and Cate Blanchett. Golden-globe winner Blanchett stars in director Steven Soderbergh's "The Good German", which is also in the running for the Golden Bear. Co-star George Clooney plays a U.S. journalist in the black-and-white film who gets embroiled in a murder plot. "The Good German" is already on release in the United States but gets its international premiere in Berlin, where it is set. While the cinemas are preparing for the crowds and posters are put up in town, just as they have done at this time of the year for the last 54 years, workers at Family Noacks' forge are working at full speed. The shiny golden statues given out at the star-studded Berlin Film Festival are a product of the hard work and dedication of the skillful metal workers. Hidden under protective clothing spend weeks putting together a collection of bear-shaped trophies. The twenty-centimetre high bronze figures take one and half days to make, after which they are plated in gold or silver, and are ready to be presented to the lucky winners. "I wouldn't describe it as an honour, but it is fun when you know that maybe somebody well-known will get one and you worked on it," says foundry worker Christiane Preum. "It's really quite good to think that someone famous will get one." Each year comes with the challenge of figuring out how many golden and how many silver bears to make. This depends on how many winners there will be in each category, explains the owner of the family business, Hermann Noack. By the time the festival has arrived, he himself has had enough of the stars. "The time we spend preparing for the film festival is enough for me. I have a look at who won - after all we are the first to get the names of who has won," Noack said. "So I look at who has one and think 'ah they got one, that is nice, or oh, why did they get one, the others were much better." The speculation on who will be collecting the awards at this year's festival has not yet begun. The metal workers under the heavy workload surely haven't got the time for that. But then again they need not worry, they will be the very first ones to know the outcome as they engrave the names of the winners onto the base of each golden or silver bear. The idea for the golden bears, Berlin's mascot, came from a professor of sculpture, Renee Sintenist, who produced the original model for the statues over fifty years ago. A similar statue in larger format stands next to the motorway at the entrance to the German capital - and the Berlinale bears are now all over the world. The festival opens on Thursday February 8th with La Vie en Rose, a film about the French singer Edith Piaff. The Berlinale, unlike its rivals in Cannes and Venice, opens its doors to the public, making available several thousand tickets for the ordinary cinema-goers alongside special screenings for some 3,500 journalists and some several thousand film rights buyers.

ITN Source | February 8, 2007

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