Berlinale programmers have now confirmed another eight titles in the official Competition section, including new works by International Jury President Paul Schrader, Clint Eastwood, Gregory Nava and Stefan Ruzowitzky.

Schrader's The Walker, which stars Woody Harrelson as an escort to lonely society ladies who is accused of murder, will be screened out of competition. Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin, Moritz Bleibtreu and international jury member Willem Dafoe co-star in this US-UK co-production, which will have its world premiere in Berlin.

Also screening as world premieres are:

Austrian filmmaker Stefan Ruzowitzky's WWII drama The Counterfeiter (Die Falscher) based on the true story of a banknote counterfeiting scam organised by the Nazis with concentration camp prisoners. Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow and Marie Baumer star.

French director Jacques Rivette's dramatic love story based on a Balzac novella, Don't Touch the Axe (Ne Touchez Pas La Hache), starring Guillaume Depardieu, Jeanne Balibar and Michel Piccoli.

Andre Techine's The Witnesses (Les Temoins), starring Emmanuelle Beart, Michel Blanc, Sami Bouajila and Julie Depardieu, deals with the emergence of AIDS in the early 1980s.

Gregory Nava's US production Bordertown, which is inspired by the real murders of Mexican women workers in the border town of Ciudad Juarez in the early 1990s. Jennifer Lopez, who plays a US journalist searching for the truth, stars with Antonio Banderas, Maya Zapata and Martin Sheen.

Italian director Saverio Costanzo's In Memory of Myself (In Memoria di me), with Christo Jivkov as a novice monk having second thoughts before his ordination.

In addition, Clint Eastwood will be presenting Letters From Iwo Jima, the second film in his two-part project about the legendary 1945 battle, in an 'out of competition' screening as a European premiere. Warner Bros. will handle the German release on Feb 22.

Also, veteran Czech director Jiri Menzel will return to Berlin with his latest film I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval Jsem Anglickeho Krale), which recounts two decades of European history from the viewpoint of a waiter from Prague. German actress Julia Jentsch, who won the Silver Bear for her role in Sophie Scholl - The Final Days, appears alongside Ivan Barnev and Oldrich Kaiser in the Czech-Slovak co-production which will be showing in the Competition programme as an international premiere.

So far, 15 films out of the 26-title Competition programme (including those running 'out of competition') have been announced, with the world premiere of Olivier Dahan's Piaf biopic La Vie En Rose set to open the Berlinale on Feb 8.

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