Kim Cattrall, Ewan McGregor in The Ghost Writer
The complete official program for the 2010 Berlin Film Festival, which runs Feb. 11-21, has been announced.
Twenty-six films will be screened, of which twenty will be vying for the Golden Bear. The other six entries will be screened out of competition. Among the films in competition, Roman Polanski's mystery thriller The Ghost Writer has attracted the most attention chiefly because of the filmmaker's arrest last year. Stars Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan are expected in Berlin, but Polanski remains under house arrest at his chalet in Gstaad.
Based on the novel The Ghost by Robert Harris, who also wrote the film's screenplay, The Ghost Writer was finished by Polanski after his arrest. Ewan McGregor plays a professional ghostwriter hired to pen the memoirs of a former Tony Blair-like British Prime Minister (Brosnan) with a deep dark secret in his past.
Also in the Ghost Writer cast: Olivia Williams, Kim Cattrall, Jim Belushi, Eli Wallach, Timothy Hutton, Robert Pugh and Tom Wilkinson.
Photo: Courtesy of the Berlin Film Festival
Berlin 2010 Competition Line-Up
Bal ("Honey"), director Semih Kaplanoglu
Caterpillar, Koji Wakamatsu
En Familie ("A Family"), Pernille Fischer Christensen
En ganske snill mann ("A Somewhat Gentle Man"), Hans Petter Moland
Eu cand vreau sa fluier, fluier ("If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle"), Florin Serban
The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski
Greenberg, Noah Baumbach
Howl, Rob Epstein
Jud Suss — Film ohne Gewissen ("Jud Suss — Film without a conscience"), Oskar Roehler
Kak ya provel etim letom ("How I Ended This Summer"), Alexei Popogrebsky
The Killer Inside Me, Michael Winterbottom
Mammuth, Benoit Delepine
Na Putu ("On the Path"), Jasmila Zbanic
Der Rauber ("The Robber"), Benjamin Heisenberg
Rompecabezas ("Puzzle"), Natalia Smirnoff
San qiang pai an jing qi ("A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop"), Zhang Yimou
Shadada ("Faith"), Burhan Qurbani
Shekarchi ("The Hunter"), Rafi Pitts
Submarino, Thomas Vinterberg
Tuan Yuan ("Apart Together"), Wang Quan'an.
Out of competition
Exit Through The Gift Shop, Banksy
The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko
My Name is Khan, Karan Johar
Otouto ("About Her Brother"), Yoji Yamada
Please Give, Nicole Holofcener
Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese