Berlinale completes line-up for 60th anniversary edition

A screening of Eric Rohmer’s Pauline At The Beach (Pauline A La Plage), in memory of the late director, is among the last minute additions to this year’s Berlinale.

Rohmer’s 1983 film, which will be shown in the Berlinale Special sidebar, will be joined by a screening of Erwin Keusch’s Das Brot Des Bäckers in the Culinary Cinema programme to mark lead actor Günter Lamprecht’s 80th birthday, while Maximilian Erlenwein’s drama Gravity (Schwerkraft) has been added to the Perspektive Deutsches Kino programme on February 21, the final day of the festival.

Dieter Kosslick, the festival director, also confirmed that the directorial debut from UK graffiti artist Bansky, Exit Through The Gift Shop, will be shown in competition.

Meanwhile, he revealed that festival will award three Berlinale Cameras to mark its 60^th anniversary. The awards aim to acknowledge film personalities or institutions to whom the festival feels especially attached.

The recipients will be Erika and Ulrich Gregor, who founded the International Forum of New Cinema (now known as Forum) in 1971, before a screening of Nagisa Oshima’s Gishiki on February 14, while the Berlin founder Giesserei Noack will receive the award for overseeing the Berlin Bear trophies since the first festival in 1951.

Veteran Japanese director Yoji Yamada, who has been a guest of the Berlinale with six films previously, will also be presented with a Berlinale Camera before the screening of his latest film About Her Brother (Otouto) after the awards ceremony on February 20.

Meanwhile, European Film Market director Beki Probst reported that 414 exhibitors from 48 countries (2008: 407) are registered to date, with 1,339 buyers from 62 countries (compared to 1,448 from 59 countries last year). Around 1,000 screenings have been booked at the EFM for 669 films, of which 503 will be market premieres.

Moreover, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, Sönke Wortmann’s Pope Joan, Matthias Glasner’s This is Love, and Urs Odermatt’s Mein Kampf are among 17 films selected for this year’s German Cinema showcase, which is only open to accredited participants.

A subdivision of the EFM, the German Cinema showcase is primarily targeting international theatrical and TV buyers, festival programmers and heads of the Goethe Institutes from abroad.