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Hollywood stars, cinema veterans due at Berlin festival
2009-01-15
BERLIN (AFP) - New movies starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones and Demi Moore have been added to the line-up at next month's 59th Berlin Film Festival, organisers said Thursday. The 14 new selections for the Berlinale's main showcase include features by veteran European directors such as Stephen Frears ("The Queen"), Costa-Gavras ("Missing") and Andrzej Wajda ("Katyn"), the festival said in a statement. Frears will present "Cheri" starring Pfeiffer in an adaptation of a 1920 novel by French writer Colette. The British film-maker made the French epistolary novel "Dangerous Liaisons" into a movie with Pfeiffer and John Malkovich in 1988. Jones joins up with John Goodman and Peter Sarsgaard in the Franco-US production "In the Electric Mist" by Bertrand Tavernier set in Louisiana. It will be one of more than 20 films vying for the Golden Bear top prize to be presented on February 14. Moore and Parker Posey will appear in "Happy Tears" by US director Mitchell Lichtenstein, playing sisters who return home to care for their irascible ailing father (Rip Torn). Oscar-winner Costa-Gavras, who led the 2008 Berlinale jury and will turn 76 during this year's event, is to screen "Eden is West" about illegal immigrants living in Europe. Wajda, whose films were long championed in Berlin during the Cold War, will unveil "Sweet Rush" about an ageing doctor's wife who is taken by surprise by love. France's Francois Ozon ("Swimming Pool") will premiere "Ricky" about an extraordinary love child. Iranian production "About Elly" by Asghar Farhadi looks at an Iranian who returns home after years living in Germany. Germany will offer up "Deutschland 09", a series of vignettes by hot directors including Fatih Akin ("The Edge of Heaven"), Tom Tykwer ("Perfume") and Wolfgang Becker ("Goodbye Lenin"). "With their very distinctive artistic styles, the films of the 2009 competition provide evidence of living conditions in our globalised world," Berlinale chief Dieter Kosslick said in the statement. Guests at this year's festival will include a raft of Hollywood heavyweights including Kate Winslet, Steve Martin, Jude Law and Clive Owen presenting new pictures. Winslet will promote "The Reader", an erotic drama in which she plays a former Nazi concentration camp guard running from her past in postwar Germany -- a role that won her one of two Golden Globe awards this week. Martin will bring the second Pink Panther remake featuring the silver-haired comedian as the hapless Inspector Clouseau. "Pink Panther II" will also appear out of competition. "Rage", a black comedy about a New York fashion house by British director Sally Potter ("Orlando"), will gun for the Golden Bear with a powerhouse cast including Law, Judi Dench, Dianne Wiest and Steve Buscemi. The February 5-to-15 Berlinale will open with the premiere of "The International", a thriller about global finance starring Owen and Naomi Watts.
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