Focusing at "the glamorous and suspense-packed second that precedes every cinema experience when the curtain opens to reveal the screen" quoting the festival΄s Director Dieter Kosslick,
Berlinale΄s key visual is the stage curtain, featuring at the 2015 edition poster.
The
65th edition of Berlin International Film Festival is opening its curtains tomorrow with the Isabel Coixet΄s
Nobody Wants the Night, a Spanish/French/Bulgarian co-production of 2014 supported by
Eurimages, screening at the
International Competition Programme. Some highly anticipated titles will be presented at the various sections and programmes of the festival, including Werner Herzog΄s
Queen of the Desert and Terence Malick΄s latest
Knight of Cups, Wim Wenders΄ new 3D project,
Everything Will Be Fine,
Taxi by Jafar Panahi, the documentary
The Look of Silence by Joshua Oppenheimer (follow up to his
The Act of Killing) as well as
Eisenstein in Guanajuato by Peter Greenaway, a documentary on prolific German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder,
To Love Without Demands by Christian Braad Thomsen and Hal Hartley΄s return with
Ned Rifle.
Nobody Wants the Night, a Spanish/French/Bulgarian co-production
2015 International Competition Jury will be comprised of director, screenwriter and producer Darren Aronofsky serving as Jury President, rounded by Daniel Brühl, Bong Joon-ho, Martha De Laurentiis, Claudia Llosa, Audrey Tautou and Matthew Weiner.
Not few Balkan co-productions are included at this year΄s line-up. Beside Coixet΄s opening film, the
International Comnpetition Programme features
Laura Bispuri΄s Eurimages supported
Sworn Virgin (Italy/Czech Republic/Germany/Albania/Kosovo*, 2015) and
Aferim! (also financed by Eurimages) by
Radu Jude (Romania/Bulgaria/Czech Republic, 2015).
Tudor Giurgiu΄s
Why me? (Romania/Bulgaria/Hungary, 2014, supported by Eurimages) will be presented at the
Panorama Programme, along with
Petting Zoo by Micah Magee, a German/Greek/US production of 2015.
Read the related article for the comlplete list of the Berlinale 2015 projects Eurimages has supported, along with the new award the Fund is launching in collboration with the festival΄s Co-Production Market.
Until I Lose My Breath by Emine Emel Balci
Berlinale΄s dynamic and always fruitfull Co-Production Market will be presenting 36 new feature film projects from 28 countries. All the projects are being developed by internationally experienced producers and have secured at least 30 percent of their budgets, which range between 1 and 6.5 million euros. Official project selection΄s line-up presents 20 projects, including 3 Balkan co-productions:
NY Gypsy by Ivaylo Markov,
Agitprop (Bulgaria)
Co-Production Market΄s
Rotterdam-Berlinale Express line-up features
Syllas Tzoumerkas΄
The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea, produced by Greece΄s
Homemade Films while, two other Balkan co-productions have been selected for the
Talent Project Market:
The Secret Ingredient, producer Emilija Chochkova (FYROM)
Passed by Censor by Serhat Karaaslan (Turkey)
Berlinale Shorts Programme includes two Balkan Golden Bear winners,
Cigarettes And Coffee by
Cristi Puiu (Romania, 2003, 13΄),
Short Film Competition Golden Bear in 2004 and
Stefan Arsenijevic΄s
(A)Torsion (Slovenia, 2002, 15΄), winner of
2003 Short Film Competition Golden Bear.
Two films from Turkey, a feature and a short plus a Croatian short are included at the Generation Programme:
Picnic by Jure Pavlović, Croatia, 2015, 13΄
Cigarettes and Coffee, 2004 Short Film Competition Golden Bear
About the
festival΄s side events and retrospectives, worth mentioning is the
Glorious Technicolor. From George Eastman House and Beyong Retrospective, which promises a colour spectacle by celebrating the 100th anniversary of the legendary colour film process Color by Technicolor. Around 30 Technicolor films made in the early years between the dawn of Technicolor and 1953, some of which restored.
Wim Wenders΄ 10-film Homage is expected to attract big audiences to films rarely seen nowadays in the big screen. The German filmmaker will be awarded with a lifetime achievement Honorary Golden Bear, which will be followed by a screening of what could be his finest achievement, The American Friend, back from 1977.
Beside the main traditional venues Berlinale uses for the screenings, again this year the festival will digitally distribute films to to different Berlin cinemas with its Berlinale Goes Kiez Programme. 500 terabytes of film content will be transferred from a data centre to 16 film venues across the city. Quoting again Festival Director Dieter Kosslick , "The digitisation of the film industry is almost complete and the Berlinale festival has remained ahead of the curve [...] We have faced enormous technical and logistical challenges, in particular the acceptance and distribution of digitally produced films with ever larger amounts of data".
The 65th Berlinale opens tomorrow, February 5, lasting til the 15th of the same month.