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Minister of State and Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media Prof. Monika Grütters, the Mayor of Berlin Michael Müller, Jury President Paul Verhoeven and Festival Director Dieter Kosslick will open the 67th Berlin International Film Festival at the Berlinale Palast at 7.30 pm on February 9.

During the Opening Gala, the International Jury will be introduced. In addition to Paul Verhoeven (director, screenwriter, The Netherlands), Dora Bouchoucha Fourati (producer, Tunisia), Olafur Eliasson (artist, Iceland), Maggie Gyllenhaal (actress, USA), Julia Jentsch (actress, Germany), Diego Luna (actor, director, Mexico) und Wang Quan’an (director, screenwriter, People’s Republic of China) will also be introduced. Anke Engelke will host the evening. The event will be broadcasted live on television by ZDF/3sat and via www.berlinale.de.

Following the Opening Gala Django by Etienne Comar will have its world premiere. The director and his film team, including the actors Alex Brendemühl, Cécile de France, Reda Kateb, Bim Bam Merstein, Beáta Palya and Jan Henrik Stahlberg will present the film in the Berlinale Palast.

The members of the International Jury and the GWFF Best First Feature Award Jury, director Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala), French actress Clotilde Courau and director and producer Mahmoud Sabbagh (Saudi Arabia) are all expected on the Red Carpet. Also the Jury members of the Glashütte Original Dokumentarfilmpeis, Daniela Michel (Mexico), Laura Poitras (USA) und Samir (Iraq / Swiss), will be there. A number of prominent German politicians and ambassadors have also announced their attendance.

Other international and national guests are also anticipated: Mario Adorf, Fatih Akin, Thomas Arslan, Hartmut Becker, Iris Berben, Senta Berger, Anne Zohra Berrached, Sebastian Blomberg, Can Dündar, August Diehl, Maria-Victoria Dragus, Andreas Dresen, Katja Eichinger, Alexander Fehling, Veronica Ferres, Inka Friedrich, Liv Lisa Fries, Maria Furtwängler, Martina Gedeck, Jan Ole Gerster, Michael Gwisdek, Jella Haase, Fritzi Haberlandt, Monika Hansen-Sander, Corinna Harfouch, Leander Haußmann, André M. Hennicke, Hannah Herzsprung, Jutta Hoffmann, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Louis Hofmann, Henry Hübchen, Sandra Hüller, Hannes Jaenicke, Christian Jankowski, Odine Johne, Sibel Kekilli, Friederike Kempter, Burghart Klaußner, Herbert Knaup, Hanno Koffler, Juliane Köhler, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Thomas Kretschmann, David Kross, Frederick Lau, Alina Levshin, Enrico Lo Verso, Heike Makatsch, Jacob Matschenz, Ulrich Matthes, Wotan Wilke Möhring, Ursela Monn, Antoine Monot, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Nele Mueller-Stöfen, Wanja Mues, Jannis Niewöhner, Ulrich Noethen, Christiane Paul, Christian Petzold, Max Riemelt, Oskar Roehler, Andrea Sawatzki, James Schamus, Clemens Schick, Tom Schilling, Jenny Schily, Sebastian Schipper, Volker Schlöndorff, Maria Schrader, Emilia Schüle, Jannik Schümann, Marie-Lou Sellem, Robert Stadlober, Lilith Stangenberg, Jasmin Tabatabai, Aylin Tezel, Anna Thalbach, Rosalie Thomass, Antje Traue, Ludwig Trepte, Jördis Triebel, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Tom Tykwer, Justus von Dohnányi, Rosa von Praunheim, Nora von Waldstätten, Franziska Weisz, Wim Wenders, Lavinia Wilson, Ai Weiwei, Johanna Wokalek, Tang Yan, Roland Zehrfeld, as well as many others.

(Source: Berlinale Press Office)

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

Besides having four Principal Partners – Audi, Glashütte Original, L’Oréal Paris, and ZDF – the Berlinale is supported by more than 30 national and international enterprises. The Festival’s Co-Partners are Mastercard and Tesiro.

“We would sincerely like to thank Prof. Monika Grütters for the unflagging support of the federal government. We are also extremely indebted to all our Official Partners. Along with backing us financially, they contribute indispensably to the festival experience by offering diverse services and funding various initiatives. The Berlinale, as we know and love it, would not be possible without this fantastic support,” says Festival Director Dieter Kosslick.

Principal Partners

Audi

As official automobile partner, Audi is providing the Berlinale with about 300 vehicles which bring the stars to the Red Carpet. At the Audi Berlinale Lounge directly in front of the Berlinale Palast, the automobile manufacturer will also give exciting insights into the world of cinema. Here the Berlinale Open House Programme will offer movie fans a chance to experience the important personalities of this year’s Berlinale films up close.
Audi has supported short film directors at the Berlinale with the Audi Short Film Award since 2015. Endowed with € 20,000, this award for innovative artistic filmmaking will be presented during the official Award Ceremony by the International Short Film Jury (Christian Jankowski, Kimberly Drew, Carlos Núñez).
In 2017, under the newly created umbrella of “EFM Horizon presented by Audi”, the European Film Market (EFM) will be offering a variety of different initiatives focussing on the film industry of the future.
Audi is also supporting the Berlinale Social Hub and has again been responsible for the production of the Berlinale’s popular festival bag. Once more there will be an official Berlinale box office for advanced ticket sales at Audi City Berlin (Kurfürstendamm 195).

Glashütte Original

This year, Glashütte Original – a watch manufacturer rich in tradition – will sponsor for the first time the Glashütte Original Documentary Award. Endowed with € 50,000, it will be presented during the official Award Ceremony. The prize money will be split between the director and the producer of a documentary film from the Competition, Berlinale Special, Panorama, Generation, Perspektive Deutsches Kino or Forum section. The jury members in 2017 are Daniela Michel (Mexico), Laura Poitras (USA), and Samir (Iraq/Switzerland). In addition to the prize money, Glashütte Original will also provide the statuette, which will be crafted in the company’s manufactory in Saxony.

As Principal Partner, Glashütte Original is official host of the Golden Bear Lounge in the Hotel Grand Hyatt Berlin, which will be the central meeting place for film teams in the official programme as well as other eminent festival guests.

L’Oréal Paris

With its professional make-up team, the Berlinale’s official cosmetic specialist will again provide the stars with the perfect Red Carpet look. The fact that the world of film is closely related to the world of beauty is embodied by film icons such as Julianne Moore, Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, Eva Longoria, and Iris Berben. Festival-goers will also have a chance to get the latest “Berlinale look”, free of charge, at the L’Oréal Paris Make-up-Studio at Potsdamer Platz.
On the occasion of the Berlinale, L‘Oréal Paris will for the first time present “The Atelier” in Berlin: a creative location that will allow people to actually experience the brand known as L‘Oréal Paris. Lena Meyer-Landrut and Miss Fame, both brand ambassadors, are expected at the opening of “The Atelier” and on the Berlinale’s Red Carpet.

ZDF

As the Principal Media Partner of the Berlinale, the ZDF/3sat television network is producing and broadcasting all the stage events at the Berlinale Palast – from the Opening Gala to the Shooting Stars Awards, from the presentation of the Honorary Golden Bear to the Award Ceremony of the International Jury. As pool leader, ZDF is also in charge of providing TV footage to countless national and international broadcasters covering the Festival.

At 7.20 pm on February 9, 2017, the Opening Gala of the Berlinale will be broadcast live by 3sat, ZDF’s partner station, during the programme “Kulturzeit extra”. On February 18, 2017, 3sat will also televise the final highlight of the Festival in a special live broadcast: the awarding of the Golden and Silver Bears by the International Jury.
Industry get-togethers will be held daily at the ZDF Lounge in the “mesa” restaurant of the Grand Hyatt Berlin.

Co-Partners

Mastercard

Mastercard, a leading international technology company for payment solutions, builds on emotionality and exclusivity. This makes its partnership with the Berlinale a significant component of its branding strategy.

In partnering with the Berlinale, Mastercard is again setting up an exclusive ticket counter in the Potsdamer Platz Arkaden mall. Here Mastercard holders can secure tickets to highly-coveted film premieres. In addition, all sorts of “priceless surprises” await visitors during the festival.

Tesiro

Each year since 2009, Tesiro has presented an exclusive Berlinale jewelery collection that illustrious guests may adorn to crown their appearances on the Red Carpet. Tesiro is not only continuing its long-standing co-partnership with the Berlinale, but also its support as principal partner of the European Shooting Stars initiative. The presentation of the Shooting Stars Awards will take place in the Berlinale Palast on February 13, 2017. Tesiro is also bringing a large number of representatives of the Chinese press to Berlin for media coverage about the festival.

Initiative Partners in 2017: ARRI and Nespresso (Co-Partners of Berlinale Talents).

Third Partners in 2017: ARRI, Colt Technology Services, Dell EMC, Dolby, GWFF, rbb TV station, TV Movie.

The “Gesellschaft zur Verwertung von Film- und Fernsehrechten (GWFF)”, a society for safeguarding film and television rights, is funding the GWFF Best First Feature Award endowed with € 50,000. This year’s jury members are Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala), Clotilde Courau (France), and Mahmoud Sabbagh (Saudi Arabia).

Suppliers in 2017: Akkumat, Aspera (an IBM company), Barco, Canon, ChariTea, CineStar, Cup Concept, Deutsches Weininstitut (DWI), Haus Rabenhorst, Nespresso, Rohde & Schwarz, Potsdamer Platz – Brookfield, Sony Center at the Potsdamer Platz, TOP-IX, Viva con Agua, Vranken Pommery, Wall.

For editorial coverage, the website of the Berlinale offers more details and contact information.

(Source: Berlinale Press Office)

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams were celebrated for their remarkable roles in Kenneth Lonergan’s deeply poignant Manchester by the Sea and were feted with a tribute at the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara Sunday night.

Watch the video as Affleck, Williams and Lonergan share their collective experiences during the course of the past year as they accept the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Cinema Vanguard Award.

I fully expect to see more “remarkable” performances in the near future from these talented actors!

The Cinema Vanguard Award was created in recognition of actors who have forged their own path – taking artistic risks and making a significant and unique contribution to film. Previous honorees include Rooney Mara, Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, Amy Adams, Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, Nicole Kidman,Christoph Waltz, Vera Farmiga, Stanley Tucci, Peter Sarsgaard, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Ryan Gosling.

(Source: sbiff.org)

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

CineYouth Film Challenge

Do you know an aspiring young filmmaker? We’ve got a great opportunity for students ages 10-18 to participate in a single day filmmaking experience. Join us for CineYouth Film Challenge on Saturday, April 22, at Columbia College Chicago, where students will collaborate on making a short film from start to finish. The completed films will go on to screen at CineYouth Festival, May 4-6.

The Film Challenge is generously supported by sponsor Allstate Insurance and partner Columbia College Chicago.

(Source: Chicago Press Office)

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

The Berlin International Film Festival is presenting a special screening to commemorate the recently deceased actor John Hurt. Since the 1990s he had attended the Berlinale with regularity and starred in twelve films presented at the festival.

The British actor is considered one of the most brilliant performers of the stage and screen in the last 50 years. Early in his career he gained international acclaim as a character actor. His roles in Midnight Express (dir: Alan Parker, 1978) and The Elephant Man (dir: David Lynch, 1980), for which he garnered Oscar nominations, firmly established him at the top of the league in Hollywood. Younger audiences are acquainted with Hurt from his portrayal of Mr. Ollivander in the Harry Potter films. Currently moviegoers in Germany can see him in Jackie (dir: Pablo Larraín).

Berlinale entries with John Hurt that screened, for instance in the Competition include The Commissioner (dir: George Sluizer, 1998), V for Vendetta (dir: James McTeigue, out of competition in 2006), and Jayne Mansfield’s Car (dir: Billy Bob Thornton, 2012). John Nossiter’s Resident Alien (1991) and Owning Mahowny by Richard Kwietniowski (2003) were shown in the Panorama.

In memory of John Hurt, the Berlin International Film Festival will present An Englishman in New York by Richard Laxton. In 2009 Hurt received the Teddy Award for his outstanding performance in this film. It will screen in CinemaxX 6 at 6.00 pm on Friday, February 17.

(Source: Berlinale Press Office)

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

Once again the Berlinale Goes Kiez special series is bringing the glamour of the festival to Berlin’s very diverse neighborhoods and the city of Potsdam. The Berlinale will screen at seven select arthouse cinemas known for participating in and contributing to cultural life in their respective neighborhoods.

In Neukölln a new cinema w o l f will be opening its doors for the first time with the Berlinale. And in the Wrangelkiez, one of Kreuzberg’s most upbeat neighborhoods, the Red Carpet will again be rolled out at the newly converted and enlarged EISZEIT cinema.

From February 11 to 17, 2017, a selection of films from the official Berlinale program will be shown in neighborhoods, ranging from Berlin-Weißensee to beyond the city limits in Potsdam-Babelsberg. Each evening one arthouse cinema will be turned into a festival venue.

Members of film teams have already announced their intention to present their works personally and discuss them with audiences after the screenings. At each neighborhood cinema a prominent film personality will serve as its patron.

The Berlinale Goes Kiez series will also begin with the official opening film of this year’s Berlinale. Django (Competition) by Etienne Comar will kick off the evening at the Bundesplatz-Kino in Wilmersdorf. Local moviegoers can expect a long and interesting evening, as shortly before midnight a film from the Berlinale Classics program will be presented as well: the digitally restored version of George A. Romero’s horror classic Night of the Living Dead.

For the first time NATIVe, the Berlinale special series on Indigenous cinema, has been invited to participate in Berlinale Goes Kiez. At the EISZEIT cinema in Kreuzberg, two films from Canada will represent this year’s special region of focus, the Artic.
At the w o l f in Neukölln, Berlinale Goes Kiez and Berlinale Talents will launch their first collaboration. In public talks titled “Local Heroes: Community Cinema Reloaded”, innovative international cinema operators will discuss with the audience ways to curate, finance, and involve the neighborhood in local movie theatres.

Festival Director Dieter Kosslick: “Our ‘local heroes’ are neighborhood cinemas in Berlin and Brandenburg that are open to topics important to the community and foster an on-going dialogue through the stories presented on their screens.”

Advance sales start on February 6, 2017; tickets will also be available at the respective cinemas.

Neighbourhood cinemas and programme

Saturday, February 11 at Bundesplatz-Kino, Wilmersdorf
6.00 pm Competition
Django by Etienne Comar

9.00 pm Competition
Teströl és lélekröl (On Body and Soul) by Ildikó Enyedi

11.45 pm Berlinale Classics
Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero

Sunday, February 12 at Toni & Tonino, Weißensee
3.30 pm Generation Kplus
Die Häschenschule – Jagd nach dem Goldenen Ei (Rabbit School – Guardians of the Golden Egg) by Ute von Münchow-Pohl

6.30 pm Competition
Wilde Maus (Wild Mouse) by Josef Hader

9.30 pm Perspektive Deutsches Kino
Back for Good by Mia Spengler

Monday, February 13 at Odeon, Schöneberg
6.30 pm Berlinale Special Gala
Le jeune Karl Marx (The Young Karl Marx) by Raoul Peck

9.30 pm Competition
Una mujer fantástica (A Fantastic Woman) by Sebastián Lelio

Tuesday, February 14 at w o l f , Neukölln
4.30 pm Talents Go Kiez
“Local Heroes: Community Cinema Reloaded”
Public talk (in English)

6.30 pm Panorama Special
Tiger Girl by Jakob Lass

9.30 pm Forum
Chemi bednieri ojakhi (My Happy Family) by Nana & Simon

Wednesday, February 15 at Thalia Programmkino, Potsdam-Babelsberg
6.30 pm Competition
Toivon tuolla puolen (The Other Side of Hope) by Aki Kaurismäki

9.30 pm Competition
Beuys by Andres Veiel

Thursday, February 16 at City Kino Wedding
in Centre Français de Berlin, Wedding
6.30 pm Forum
Tiere (Animals) by Greg Zglinski

9.30 pm Berlinale Shorts Go Kiez
Fishing Is Not Done On Tuesdays by Lukas Marxt, Marcel Odenbach
Kometen (The Comet) by Victor Lindgren
Everything by David OReilly
Estás vendo coisas (You are seeing things) by Bárbara Wagner, Benjamin de Burca
Os Humores Artificiais (The Artificial Humors) by Gabriel Abrantes

Friday, February 17 at EISZEIT cinema, Kreuzberg
6.30 pm Culinary Cinema Goes Kiez
Theater of Life by Peter Svatek
After the screening menu at Markthalle Neun

9.00 pm NATIVe Goes Kiez
Tungijuq by Félix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphaël
Angry Inuk by Alethea Arnaquq-Baril

Berlinale Goes Kiez is supported by the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. Its complete programme can be found at http://www.berlinale.de. Please contact Uschi Feldges for more information (feldges@berlinale.de).

(Source: Berlinale Press Office)

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

R100 one was a midnight favorite at the American Film Institute’s AFIFEST 2013. I ventured out with a Japanese exchange student/cohort. We were in stitches and the audience was rollicking. I went on to review the film initially at the Santa Barbara City College SBCC Film and Media Studies site before posting it here earlier this year. In addition, at a recent Art Cinema Seminar/Class led by Santa Barbara International Film Festival Program Director Michael Albright, R1oo, received noteworthy mention. This is a film I highly recommend from a nationally renowned and esteemed Japanese director, Hitosi Matsumoto. Please enjoy the excerpt from Austin360.com!

Editor’s note: This article was originally published September 26, 2013.

Drafthouse Films, the film distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, has acquired of North American rights to Japanese director Hitoshi Matsumoto’s “R100,” a lunatic tale of male self-destruction. R100 premiered at Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness section and made its US premiere at Fantastic Fest last weekend. A VOD/Digital and theatrical release is planned for 2014.

It is not suprising that Drafthouse is picking this one up. Drafthouse and Fest founder Tim League introduced the completely gaga “R100” himself, nothing that it was the last film booked but that League, a huge Matsumoto fan, wasn’t going to let it get away. “If you don’t like this movie, you are (expletive) stupid,” League said…

“R100” (The title is itself a play on the Japanese movie ratings R-15 and R-18) is an almost early-Woody Allen-esque comedy (think “Without Feathers” era or “What’s Up, Tigher Lilly?”) about Takafumi Katayama (Nao Ohmori, the star of “Ichi The Killer” fame) whose life has gone a bit pear-shaped. His department store job is mindless, his father-in-law is helping Katayama raise his young son while his wife is in a coma in the hospital and things are just looking kind of rough for the guy (the color palette for much of the film is all browns, tans and neutrals, washed out and quite 70’s looking in spots).

No wonder the guy feels the need to contact a dominatrix service and gets more than he bargained for. To wit: he never knows exactly when the doms (called “Queens,” each with a special, uh, talent) are going to show up to beat or humiliate him. At first, things seem to go fine. Then the wheels start to come off and things start to get very, very strange.

Matsumoto masterfully switches tones, almost from scene to scene. There are quiet, tender scenes that could hail from an earnest indie movie. There is old school silent movie boffo comedy. There are a couple of solid runs at the fourth wall. As League noted in his introduction, Matsumoto takes his time to set up a joke, but the payoffs are tremendous. And it features the best use of the “Ode to Joy” since “Raising Arizona.”

(Source: Excerpted from austin360.com)

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

The one and only Martin Scorsese visited the AFI Campus recently to discuss making his spiritual epic SILENCE (an AFI AWARDS 2016 Official Selection), the master filmmaker’s decades-long labor of love that explores apostasy and crises of faith in 17th-century Japan. The film features Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver as Jesuit missionaries dispatched to Japan to locate a fellow priest gone rogue, played by Liam Neeson.

“Obviously, these themes and ideas and concepts are very much the foundation of my life. The formation began, in a way, at a very early age, so I’ve never really lost interest in that or the urge to keep searching,” Scorsese told AFI Conservatory Fellows, referencing his religious films THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988) and KUNDUN (1997). SILENCE is based on Shūsaku Endō’s 1966 novel of the same name. “Reading the book… The whole idea of this apostasy, why did it seem like a victory rather than a defeat?” Scorsese said, explaining one of the film’s central questions.

Watch a clip below in which Scorsese discusses how he was forced to re-think how to film a particular scene in SILENCE.

Scorsese also discussed the future of cinema with Fellows. “I do feel that cinema, for the first hundred years, has been within this proscenium…but that doesn’t mean it has to stay that way,” he said. “You have this unlimited technology; you can do anything. I’m the product of a certain place in time. You’re younger, it’s very different, and it’s up to you to reinvent it and use any form you want… The one thing that keeps you human is your story, and it has to be from a personal vision. It has to come from a personal truth that is different from making a product.”

(Source: afi.com)

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

Los Angeles – The winners of the Directors Guild of America Outstanding Directorial Achievement Awards for 2016 were announced during the 69^th Annual DGA Awards at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. Damien Chazelle won the DGA’s Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for La La Land.

Actor Jane Lynch hosted the ceremony before an audience of more than 1,200 guests. Presenters included (in alphabetical order): Amy Adams, Michael Apted, Casey Affleck, Paris Barclay, Martha Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Billy Crudup, Michael Fassbender, America Ferrera, Cuba Gooding Jr., Ryan Gosling, Taylor Hackford, Tony Hale, Alex R. Hibbert, Gale Anne Hurd, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicole Kidman, Christine Lahti, Helen Mirren, Mandy Moore, Kevin Nealon, Christopher Nolan, Sarah Paulson, Gene Reynolds, Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders, John Singleton, Emma Stone, Milo Ventimiglia, and Kerry Washington.

Click the links below to view specific categories:

Feature Film	First-Time Feature Film
Dramatic Series	Movies for Television and Mini-Series
Comedy Series	Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Regular
Reality Programs	Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials
Children’s Programs	Commercials
Documentary	Achievement & Service Awards

(Source: dga.org)

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

Once again an illustrious International Jury will decide who will receive the Golden and Silver Bears at the Berlinale 2017. Eighteen films are vying in this year’s Competition for the Golden and the Silver Bears. The winners will be announced at the Berlinale Palast on February 18.

Director and screenwriter Paul Verhoeven will serve as Jury President. The other members of the International Jury are producer Dora Bouchoucha Fourati (Tunisia), artist Olafur Eliasson (Denmark), actress Maggie Gyllenhaal (USA), actress Julia Jentsch (Germany), actor and director Diego Luna (Mexico), and director and screenwriter Wang Quan’an (People’s Republic of China).

Paul Verhoeven, Jury President, Director, Screenwriter (The Netherlands)

The Dutch director and screenwriter Paul Verhoeven began his directing career in 1969 with the successful Dutch television series Floris. After his feature film debut Business is Business in 1971, came the erotic thriller Turkish Delight in 1973, a big hit in the Netherlands that also garnered a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1974 Academy Awards. Following his international breakthrough Soldier of Orange (1977) and The Fourth Man (1983), Paul Verhoeven moved to Hollywood to focus on an evolution of style in his work. Large productions featuring lots of action and special effects, like RoboCop (1987), and especially Total Recall (1990), were big box-office hits that revolutionised the science fiction film genre while maintaining credibility as auteur films. The provocative, erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992), which was nominated for two Academy Awards, saw Paul Verhoeven return to themes prevalent in his Dutch works. In 1997 and 2000, he once again focused on science fiction with Starship Troopers and Hollow Man. After nearly 20 years in Hollywood, Paul Verhoeven returned to the Netherlands in 2006 to film Black Book (2006). Starting in 2007, he moved his attention to writing. In 2016 he returned to the screen with Elle, which not only won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture in the category Foreign Language, but also earned Isabelle Huppert the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.

Dora Bouchoucha Fourati, Producer (Tunisia)

Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha Fourati is something of an institution in the film world. The English literature graduate started off as a teacher and translator of screenplays. In 1992, she launched the Carthage Film Festival “Projects’ Workshop” to assist Arabs and Africans in developing their scripts and the follow-up initiative “Takmil” to support post-production in 2014. In 1995, she founded her own production company Nomadis Images. The many fiction and documentary features, and short films she has produced and co-produced include: Raja Amari’s multiple award-winning Satin Rouge (2002), Barakat! (dir: Djamila Sahraoui, Berlinale Forum 2006), Raja Amari’s Buried Secrets (2009) and Foreign Body (Berlinale Forum 2017). She produced all of Mohamed Ben Attia’s short films and his full-length debut Hedi, which screened in the Berlinale Competition in 2016 and won the Best First Feature Award and Silver Bear for Best Actor (Majd Mastoura). Dora Bouchoucha also founded the screenwriting workshop SUD ECRITURE for Arab and African scripts in 1997 which has launched many award winning films to date. She was festival director of the Carthage Film Festival in 2008, 2010, and 2014. She was appointed president of the Fonds Sud Cinéma of the CNC in 2010; and president of the follow-up institution, Aide aux Cinemas du Monde, in 2014.

Olafur Eliasson, Artist (Iceland)

Born in Denmark of Icelandic parentage, Olafur Eliasson quickly garnered international attention after completing the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He participated in the Berlin Biennale in 1998 and the Venice Biennale in 2003, and his piece “The weather project”, which was installed in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern, attracted over two million visitors. Today, with his sculptures, installations, paintings, photographs and films that often focus on physical phenomena in nature as well as climate change, he has become one of the world’s most important contemporary artists. Eliasson, who founded his studio in Berlin in 1995, has received countless awards. Besides being involved in art, he is the founder of a global sustainable energy project and social business called Little Sun, as well as the international architectural firm Studio Other Spaces. His latest artworks include a number of installations at the Palace of Versailles in 2016.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Actress (USA)

Celebrated American actress Maggie Gyllenhaal is one of the outstanding talents of her generation. After studying literature at Columbia University in New York and acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, she became known for her roles in Donnie Darko (dir: Richard Kelly, 2001) and in Spike Jonze’s Berlinale Competition entry Adaptation (2002). Her big breakthrough came when she played the lead in the film Secretary (dir: Steven Shainberg, 2002). For it she received her first Golden Globe nomination and won several awards, including an IFP/Gotham Award for Breakthrough Performance. She went on to star in, e.g., Mike Newell’s Mona Lisa Smile (2003), Marc Forster’s Stranger than Fiction (2006), Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center (2006), Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008), Sam Mendes’s Away We Go (2009), and Roland Emmerich’s White House Down (2013). For her role in Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart (2009) she was nominated for an Oscar. In 2014 she headlined the British TV series The Honourable Woman, for which she garnered a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination. Gyllenhaal, who in recent years has performed on Broadway, is currently cast to star in The Deuce, a new HBO series that she is also producing.

Julia Jentsch, Actress (Germany)

After finishing her studies at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts, Julia Jentsch, who was born in Berlin, began her career on the stage. In 2002 “Theater heute” magazine rated her the best female debut of the year. Her breakthrough on the screen was in The Edukators (2004, dir: Hans Weingartner) and in Sophie Scholl – The Final Days (Berlinale Competition 2005), for which she won not only the Berlinale’s Silver Bear, but also both the German and European Film Awards. The film itself, which was directed by Marc Rothemund, was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Since then Julia Jentsch has starred in a number of works, including 33 Scenes from Life by Polish director Małgorzata Szumowska, Hannah Arendt by Margarethe von Trotta, and I Served the King of England by Jiří Menzel. With Effie Briest (Berlinale Special 2009, dir: Hermine Huntgeburth) and 24 Weeks (Berlinale Competition 2016; dir: Anne Zohra Berrached), Jentsch was again invited to the Berlinale. Most recently she performed in front of the camera in Hans-Christian Schmid’s mini-series Das Verschwinden, which will be released in 2017.

Diego Luna, Actor, Director (Mexico)

Diego Luna’s breakthrough role came with Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también, for which he shared the Marcello Mastroianni Award with Gael García Bernal at the Venice Film Festival in 2001. His feature film acting credits include Frida (dir. Julie Taymor, 2002), The Terminal (dir: Steven Spielberg, 2004), Rudo y Cursi (dir: Carlos Cuarón, 2008), Milk (dir: Gus van Sant, Berlinale Panorama 2009), Contraband (dir: Baltasar Kormákur, 2012) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (dir: Gareth Edwards, 2016). Next fall he will star in Flatliners (dir: Niels Arden Oplev). Luna’s directorial debut, titled Abel, premiered at the film festival in Cannes in 2010. This was followed by César Chávez (Berlinale Special 2014) and Mr. Pig, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016. He and Bernal co-founded “Ambulante” in 2005, a charity organization dedicated, among other things, to promoting documentary film. Luna is also a member of the board of the Washington Office on Latin America.

Wang Quan’an, Director, Screenwriter (People’s Republic of China)

The director and screenwriter trained first as an actor before he turned to filmmaking. After studying at the Beijing Film Academy, Wang Quan’an, who was born in Yan’an in Shaanxi province, presented his debut film Lunar Eclipse in 1999. It screened in the Berlinale’s Forum section in 2002 after making various award-winning appearances at festivals around the world. He was selected with Tuya’s Marriage for the Competition in 2007 and, as the third Chinese filmmaker in the festival’s history, won the Golden Bear. Three years later, Apart Together was chosen as the Berlinale’s opening film and went on to win the Silver Bear for Best Script, which Wang co-wrote with Jin Na. He returned to the Berlinale Competition in 2012 with White Deer Plain, an adaptation of the historical novel of the same name, where his director of photography, Lutz Reitemeier, won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution.

(Source: Berlinale Press Office)

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