Today marks the beginning of the 66th Berlin International Film Festival, which will end on February 21. (Nice coincidence, the Berlinale 2016 is the same age as our Sanremo music festival…)
The jury is chaired by the ever-beautiful and unfading Meryl Streep but it is also formed by our Alba Rohrwacher, Clive Owen, the German actor Lars Eidinger, the English critic Nick James, the French photographer Brigitte Lacombe and the Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska, winner last year of the Silver Bear.
The first screening is dedicated to the film out of competition ‘Hail, Caesar!’, by the Coen brothers, complete with George Clooney and Josh Brolin on the vermilion carpet. In Berlin, however, many international celebrities are expected: Dominic West, Jude Law and Colin Firth to present ‘Genius’, Michael Grandgage, Guy Pearce, Jeff Nichols (for his ‘Midnigth Special’, with Michael Shannon, Sam Shepard, Adam Driver, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst and Jaedan Lieberher), Isabelle Huppert, star of ‘L’avenir’, by Mia Hansen – Løve, Gérard Depardieu for ‘Saint Amour’, by Benoît Delépine, the same Nicole Kidman we loved last night at the Sanremo festival, the same Spike Lee still dealing, among other things, with the #OscarsSoWhite initiative. Iran, after last year success of Jafar Panahi, this year doubles and offers ‘Soy Nero’, by Soy Rafi Pitts and ‘A dragon arrives’, by Mani Haghighi.
As for the films in competition, the festival reading-key seems “Emigration and the pursuit of happiness”, a big relevance topic and of highest importance. These are the titles: ’24 Weeks’, by Anne Zohra Berrached,’ Alone in Berlin ‘, by Vincent Perez, ‘Boris sans Beatrice’, by Denis Coté,’ Letters from War ‘, by Ivo M. Erreira,’ Crosscurrent’, by Yang Chao, ‘A dragon arrives!’, by Mani Haghighi, the aforementioned ‘Genius’, by Michael Grandage, the story of Hemingway’s publisher, ‘A lullaby to the sorrowful mystery’, by Lay Diaz, ‘Hedi’, by Mohamed Ben Attia, ‘The City’, by Thomas Vinterberg, the cited ‘Midnight Special’, by Jeff Nichols, ‘News from planet Mars’, by Dominik Moll, ‘Being 17′, by Andre Téchiné,’ Death in Sarajevo’, by Danis Tanović,’ Soy Nero’, by Rafi Pitts,’Zero Days’, by Alex Gibney, ‘United States of love’, by Tomasz Wasilewski.
Italy is represented by the documentary ‘Fuocoammare’, by Gianfranco Rosi, on the tragedies of Lampedusa; many, however, the Italic professionals in the Berlinale Talents: Enrico Maria Artale (director and writer), Francesco Mattuzzi (director), Roberto de Paolis Maino (producer), Jon Coplon (producer), Giovanni Aloi (director), Antonietta Bruni (distributor and manufacturer), Koudous Seihon (actor), Francesca Massariol, naturalized English, Claudio Cea, Canadian by adoption.
Within the festival, Terence Devies will revive the life and the poetry of Emily Dickinson, with ‘A Quiet Passion’.
We are glad for Gianfranco Rosi’s ‘Fuocoammare’ win the Golden Bear at the 66th Berlinale, as already did in 2014 with ‘Sacro GRA’.