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The
Berlinale - usually best known for its politically-focussed
films - is this year taking a step back from the burning issues
preoccupying a turbulent world.
Among the highlights in the line-up announced on Monday is "La
Cocina," Alonso Ruizpalacios' film starring Rooney Mara which
follows the lunchtime rush in a New York City kitchen.
Hong Sang-soo's "A Traveler's Needs", starring Isabelle Huppert,
is a "a light yet piercing take on human relationships,"
according to festival director Carlo Chatrian, who along with
Mariette Rissenbeek is bowing out in 2024 after a five-year-run.
Another of the films on their crowd-pleasing roster is "Another
End", Piero Messina's relationship-focussed science fiction tale
of people finding comfort in surrogates for the dead, starring
Gael Garcia Bernal and Renate Reinsve.
In all 20 films will be competing for the Golden Bear, awarded
by a jury headed by Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong'o.
Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve makes another appearance in the
competition line-up in Aaron Schimberg's "A Different Man", also
starring Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson, a New York-set story
about a man recovering from illness.
The opening film will be Tim Mielants' "Small Things Like
These", starring "Peaky Blinders"' Cillian Murphy in a
historical drama about religious oppression in rural Ireland.
Politics is not wholly absent: Victor Kossakovsky's "Architecton"
is a documentary about cement and humanity's impact on a
changing planet.
Maryam Moghaddam's "My Favourite Cake" tells the story of a
woman who decides to resume the live she led before Iran's
revolution.
At least one film has also withdrawn from one of the specialist
competitions in protest at Germany's support for Israel during
the conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
"So far, we haven't received any signal that film-makers in the
main programme want to boycott the festival," Chatrian told a
news conference.
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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