Berlin Film Fest Offers Wide-Ranging Program
Films from as far afield as Iran and Japan will compete with strong Oscar contender “There Will Be Blood” for the top prize at this year’s Berlin film festival.
Twenty-one films are competing for the main Golden Bear award at the “Berlinale,” the first of the year’s major European film festivals — which runs from Feb. 7 to 17.
Contenders announced Tuesday by the festival organizers include Spanish director Isabel Coixet’s “Elegy,” based on Philip Roth’s novel “The Dying Animal,” and starring Penelope Cruz and Ben Kingsley; “There Will Be Blood,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s oil-boom epic, starring Daniel Day-Lewis; and Damian Harris’ “Gardens Of The Night,” featuring John Malkovich.
Organizers say they do not expect the Berlin festival to be hit by the Hollywood writers’ strike, which reduced the annual Golden Globes ceremony to a news conference. “We will not have a dead carpet, but a red carpet,” festival director Dieter Kosslick said, adding that Cruz, Kingsley, Malkovich, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and others are expected in Berlin.
