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While the icons who will ply its red carpet
this year - including China's Fan Bingbing, Sean Penn, Steven
Spielberg and Anne Hathaway - will command much of the
attention, it is the scramble for choice picks at the parallel
European Film Market that make the festival, known as the
Berlinale, a fixture of the global film calendar.
And, after a three-year pandemic lull, the volume of movies
seeking distributors or financing is setting records, with 827
films from 121 countries chasing 1,168 buyers, according to the
festival.
"The film industry is starting to come out of the pandemic,
starting to revive itself," said Roxborough, Europe bureau chief
of the Hollywood Reporter. "It's going to be here in Berlin
where we really see the green shoots of the future of cinema."
Born in a divided city on the front lines of the Cold War, the
Berlin Film Festival has always had a political focus, and that
is doubly the case this year, when it coincides with the first
anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and ongoing
anti-government protests in Iran.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will address Thursday's
opening night gala by video link, the festival announced on
Wednesday. There are several Ukraine and Iran-focussed films on
the programme, including "Superpower", Sean Penn's and Aaron
Kaufman's profile of Zelenskiy, which was filmed as Russian
tanks rolled across the border.
Films backed by the Russian or Iranian governments are banned.
The festival will see actress Fan Bingbing return to the big
screen in "Green Night", the story of two women forced to be
self-reliant in Seoul's underworld. One of China's biggest
stars, her lengthy absence had prompted speculation she had
fallen foul of China's leadership.
(Reporting by Hanna Rantala, writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing
by Bernadette Baum and Mike Harrison)
(Photo: Workers lay the red carpet for the upcoming Berlin
International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, February 14,
2023. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo)
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