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Berlin 2007 Winners

Yu Nan in Tuya’s Marriage

"When I started making films, my teacher said film should show people’s dreams. This film made my dreams come true," remarked Chinese director Wang Quan’an upon accepting the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear for his rural drama Tuya’s Marriage, a portrait of the social and environmental costs of China’s unbridled economic growth.
In Tuya’s Marriage, a woman (Yu Nan) living in desertifying Inner Mongolia (a territory in northern China) tries to find a new husband to take care of herself and of her family, including handicapped husband #1. "I think that it is important, particularly in this time when the economy is booming," Wang remarked, "to ponder and reflect on what we’re losing."
Tuya’s Marriage is [...]

Berlin Film Festival Awards 2007

2007 Berlin Film Festival Awards
2007 Berlin Film Festival: February 8–18, 2007
Berlin 2007 Winners
 
International Competition

Golden Bear for the Best Film: Tu ya de hun shi / Tuya’s Marriage by Wang Quan’an
Silver Bear – The Jury Grand Prix: El Otro / The Other by Ariel Rotter

Silver Bear – Best Director: Joseph Cedar for Beaufort

Silver Bear – Best Actor: Julio Chávez in El Otro / The Other by Ariel Rotter

Silver Bear – Best Actress: Nina Hoss in Yella by Christian Petzold

Silver Bear – Outstanding Artistic Contribution: To the ensemble cast of The Good Shepherd by Robert De Niro
Silver Bear – Best Film Music: David Mackenzie for Hallam Foe
Alfred Bauer Prize: (for innovative work) Sai bo gu ji man [...]

Berlin 2007: Marianne Faithfull, THE WITNESSES

Peeping jane Marianne Faithfull tries to see if there’s a best actress Silver Bear awaiting her on the other side of the glory hole.

In The Guardian, Geoffrey Macnab interviews Marianne Faithfull, whose Irina Palm, the story of a woman who becomes a sex worker in order to get money for her sick grandson, was screened at the Berlinale:
"Irina Palm is far less voyeuristic than such a synopsis might suggest. Faithfull plays Maggie beautifully, with an understatement that belies her rock’n’roll past. She is at pains to point out that there is nothing remotely glamorous or funny about working in the sex industry. ‘I’ve had friends who worked in the sex trade, really good friends. And they are now dead. [...]

Berlin 2007: Cinema for Peace

Goodbye Bafana by Bille August

At Berlin’s Cinema for Peace charity event attended by Richard Gere, Catherine Deneuve, Christopher Lee, and Bob Geldorf this past Monday, a one-minute segment from a short video by Sergiu Matei was shown. Matei’s film depicts a Sept. 30, 2006, incident in which Chinese border police opened fire on Tibetan refugees attempting to flee the country.
Gere, a relentless Tibet advocate, stated that as this year’s head of the (do-nothing) G8, Germany has the "responsibility to encourage China to become part of the modern world [where] these kinds of actions and policies can not be tolerated." (Considering the atrocities perpetrated in and/or by the "modern world," I’m assuming that Gere must have been joking.)
Cinema for Peace award [...]

Berlin 2007: Asta Nielsen is Hamlet

Asta Nielsen in Hamlet

Sure, the 2007 Berlinale, which has kicked off this evening, will offer a number of good — hopefully, even a few great — new films. But for my money, the most interesting section this year is the Retrospective covering the roles of women in silent films of the 1910s and 1920s.
I’ve mentioned the Retrospective in a previous post, but I didn’t know at the time that a restored (two-strip) color version of Sven Gade and Heinz Schall’s Hamlet was going to be screened. Accompanied by Michael Riessler’s new score, Hamlet, starring Grand Diva Asta Nielsen as the angst-ridden, cross-dressing prince(ss) of Denmark, will have its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival at 6 p.m. [...]

Berlin Film Festival 2007 Film Line-Up

Berlin 2007: Official Competition Line-Up
 

300 by Zack Snyder, U.S. (World Premiere, Out of Competition)

Angel by François Ozon, France/Belgium/U.K. (World Premiere)/Closing Film

Beaufort by Joseph Cedar, Israel (World Premiere)

Bordertown by Gregory Nava, U.S. (World Premiere)

Desert Dream / Hyazgar by Zhang Lu, Republic of Korea/France (World Premiere)

Die Fälscher | The Counterfeiter by Stefan Ruzowitzky, Germany/Austria (World Premiere)

El Otro | The Other by Ariel Rotter, Argentina/France/Germany (World Premiere)

Goodbye Bafana by Bille August, Germany/France/Belgium/U.K./Italy (World Premiere)

Hallam Foe by David Mackenzie, U.K. (World Premiere)

In memoria di me / In Memory of Myself by Saverio Costanzo, Italy (World Premiere)

Irina Palm by Sam Garbarski, Belgium/Germany/Luxembourg/U.K./France (World Premiere)

La Môme | La Vie en rose by Olivier Dahan, France/U.K./Czech Republic (World Premiere)/Opening Film

Les [...]

Berlin 2007: 300, THE COUNTERFEITERS, YELLA

300 by Zack Snyder (top); Nina Hoss in Yella (middle); In Memory of Myself by Saverio Costanzo (bottom)

Berlin Film Festival 2007: Part I
A few other titles that sound intriguing:

Inspired by Frank Miller’s drawings and directed by Zack Snyder, 300 depicts the battle of Thermopylae in the year 480 B.C.E. At that decisive battle, King Leonidas of Sparta and a mere 300 followers confronted invader King Xerxes‘ brush-stomping Persian army. If the film looks even half as good as the stills, it’ll win every cinematography and production design award for 2007. But I wonder if 300 will display anything resembling intelligent storytelling, or if it’ll simply be a series of extended battle sequences glorifying bravery, honor, sadism, and all those great [...]

Berlin Film Festival 2007

Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie in The Good Shepherd (top); Cate Blanchett, George Clooney in The Good German (bottom)

English-language productions dominate the Berlin Film Festival’s 2007 official competition line-up. In all, 22 films are competing for the Golden Bear and four are being screened out of competition at this year’s Berlinale, which runs between Feb. 8-18.
Most of the English-language fare hails from the United States and the United Kingdom, in addition to several American or British co-productions with other nations.
Robert De Niro’s Cold War drama The Good Shepherd and Steven Soderbergh’s post-WWII murder mystery The Good German had been announced earlier in January. Both films have big names attached to them (Matt Damon [...]

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