Two new competitions - the Volkswagen Score Competition and the "Dialogue en Perspective" Prize - are being launched at the forthcoming Berlinale (5-15 February, 2004).

In the Volkswagen Score Competition, a jury will select the most outstanding contribution to the Berlinale Talent Campus' "The Sound and Music" section and the prize-winner will participate in a four day "School Of Sound" symposium in London, with travelling costs and accommodation covered.

The sound designers and composers entering the Competition will be required to demonstrate creativity and versatility when dealing with three extracts from different film genres.

At the same time, Volkswagen, who is also the festival's main partner, is supporting several events centred around the Campus' main theme of "The Sound and Music", including a discussion with film composer David Holmes (Ocean's Eleven, Out of Sight) and Zbigniew Preisner, famous for his co-operation with star director Krzysztof Kieslowski in Three Colours: Blue/White/Red; a presentation by Dolby, "The Story Of Sound"; and the School of Sound's Larry Sider examining the way in which film music and sound design are part of the creative process of film making in a lecture entitled "The Sound Check".

Meanwhile, the French TV channel TV 5 and the German-French Youth Organisation (DFJW) have joined forces with the Berlinale to create a new prize called "Dialogue en Perspective" which will be awarded to the one of the 12 German films screening in the "Perspketive Deutsches Kino" sidebar.

The jury will comprise three young Germans and four young French, giving them "the chance to exchange views about the art of cinema and develop a dialogue; and to provide an overview of the young German cinema."

Young German and French cineastes, who are aged between 18 and 29 and have a perfect command of both languages, are being invited to apply to become one of the seven jury members by the deadline of Jan 12.