It's that time of the year! The annual Berlin International Film Festival is opening today! I know, I know it doesn't have anything to do with web series or new ways of storytelling, you might say now.
But I live in Berlin and the Film Festival is a very big deal for me and my friends. Alongside Cannes and Toronto the Berlinale is one of the most prestigious international events. More than 19,000 film professionals from 128 countries, including about 4,000 journalists, are accredited for the Berlin International Film Festival every year. This year, there are 3 outstanding happenings, I'd like to mention:
1) The festival is officially opened with the international premiere of True Grit by Joel and Ethan Coen. The movie is a revival of the almost written off genre Western. It's a remake of a John Wayne classic and starring Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld. Berlin loves the Coen brothers, but I still think it's courageous to open a festival with a Western and we'll see if they really reinvented the genre.
2) My personal highlight will be the premiere of Arcade Fire's short film. Directed by Spike Jonze and inspired by their album The Suburbs, Scenes from the Suburbs not only features the indie rockers' music, the short was also co-written by the band's Win and Will Butler.
3) A six-member jury under actress Isabella Rossellini will award the festival's top honor, the Golden Bear, on 20th of February. One seat was left symbolically empty, though, for the jury's official seventh member - Iranian director Jafar Panahi who is jailed in his homeland. Rossellini said inviting Panahi was an "attempt to take a very strong position for freedom of speech and freedom of artists."
For more details on the program and the Berlinale in general, please visit:
http://www.berlinale.de/en/HomePage.html
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