• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Berlin Film Festival announces competition films

Posted on: Tuesday, 20 December 2005, 09:44 CST

BERLIN (Reuters) - The Berlin Film Festival announced on Tuesday the first seven films in the running for its Golden and Silver Bears awards in February along with two U.S. films that will be screened out of competition.

"Syriana," a political thriller starring George Clooney, and "The New World" with Colin Farrell about a 17th century English explorer, are the two U.S. films featured in the 26-film main program for the 56th annual Berlinale that runs February 9-19.

Both "Syriana" and "The New World" were already released in the U.S. but have been included in the festival that hopes to attract the celebrity actors of those and other films.

Six of the nine films selected so far will have their world premieres in Berlin. The rest of the program will be announced by mid-January, according to festival director Dieter Kosslick.

"We are extremely pleased to be able to present new films by famous directors as well as productions by young filmmakers," he said in a statement.

The Berlinale is the first of Europe's three major festivals in the new year and considered after Cannes and alongside Venice to be one of the world's most prestigious film showcases.

Making the Berlin festival unique are the 400,000 tickets sold to about 1,000 screenings of films in the competition and various sidebar events to ordinary cinema-goers, many of whom spend hours in long queues for tickets.

Two German directors will be competing for honors with world premieres. Oskar Roehler will present his adaptation of Michel Houellebecq's successful novel "The Elementary Particles" about two brothers set out to uncover the meaning of life.

Another German film, "Requiem" by Hans-Christian Schmid, is about exorcism in the West Germany in the 1970s.

Australia is represented with Neil Armfield's "Candy" about a young couple who become involved in drugs while a British-Canadian co-production "Snow Cake" is about a difficult love story that stars Sigourney Weaver.

Two films from Asia are in the program: a psychological thriller "Invisible Waves" by Thai director Ratanaruang Pen-ek portrays a contract killer; Chen Kaige's "Wu ji" ("The Promise") is a love story of a princess between three men and at $35 million is called the most expensive Chinese film ever made.

Last year "U-Carmen eKhayelitsha," a film that transports Georges Bizet's opera "Carmen" to a South African township, became the first African film to win Berlin's coveted Golden Bear for best film.

German actress Julia Jentsch won the Silver Bear for best actress for her portrayal of Sophie Scholl, a real-life heroine of the German resistance during World War Two who was executed by the Nazis.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category