THE INTERNATIONAL to Open the 2009 Berlin Film Festival

by Massimo David | | Leave a Comment     

 

 

Tom Tykwer’s big-budget conspiracy thriller The International, written by Eric Singer and starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, will open the 59th Berlin International Film Festival on February 5, 2009.

Tykwer, best known for the small-scale Lola rennt / Run, Lola, Run (1998), has built his career around "little" films such as Winterschläfer / Winter Sleeps (1997), Der Krieger und die Kaiserin / The Princess and the Warrior (2000), and Heaven, which opened the Berlin Film Festival in 2002. All that changed a couple of years ago with the release of the (by European standards) costly (US$60 million) English-language period piece Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, The International is his first film with a Hollywood studio, as Sony co-produced it with Germany’s Studio Babelsberg. The film opens in Germany on February 12 and a day later in the United States.

Shot in Berlin, New York, Istanbul, and Milan, The International follows an Interpol agent (Owen) who discovers that — can you handle this? — one of the world’s most powerful financial institutions is enmeshed in money laundering and illegal arms trading. (It’s unclear if the bank in question is in line to receive government bailout money.) Enter a Manhattan assistant DA (Watts) to help bring the bad guys to justice. I just hope love doesn’t bloom along the way.

Also in the International cast: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ulrich Thomsen, Jack McGee, and Brian F. O’Byrne.

The 59th Berlinale runs from February 5-15, 2009.

Clip posted by ThraumaTube.

 

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by Massimo David | November 29, 2008 | Filed Under American Cinema / Hollywood, European Cinema, Film Festivals, German Cinema 

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