Will it ever end? During his seven years as Berlinale director,
Dieter Kosslick's festival tenure is annually boosted by success at
the box office. Following the close of the 58th Berlin International
Film Festival (7-17 February 2008), bonanza statistics were promptly
released to the press. The 58th Berlinale recorded an overall audience
of 430,000, of which some 230,000 purchased tickets, thus exceeding
last year's record by more than 6,000. The number of visiting film
professionals (exhibitors, sales agents, industry representatives)
increased to 20,000 from 125 countries, topping last year's total of
19,155. The number of accredited journalists rose to 4,105. The sum of
public screenings also rose to 1,256, compared with 934 screenings in
2007. Only the number of films participating in this year's official
programs dipped in comparison to last year – down from 396 to 383 –
but even this adjustment apparently made some Berlinale entries all
the more attractive.

The buzz at the Berlinale? Of particular interest were the "EFM
Industry Debates" held in the Marriott Hotel for three days in the
middle of the festival. A hundred participants registered for the
panel discussions on the challenges and opportunities of "Digital Film
Distribution" in the not too distant future. Another press headliner
was a calculation on the "monetary worth" of this year's Berlinale,
reckoned at circa Euro 17.2 million, or around US$ 26 million. The sum
includes the input by the German government (country, state, city),
estimated at Euro 6.2 million, or approximately US$ 9.3 million. As
for coin flowing back into Berlin coffers (hotels, restaurants,
services), this was calculated at circa Euro 350 million, or around
US$ 525 million. In this regard, it should be added that the city
hotel managers are particularly pleased that the Berlinale is
scheduled annually in February, a month generally reckoned as the
slowest on the hotelier calendar. Add up these statistics and
estimates, then the Berlinale can be deemed a cultural and
entertainment event of the first rank.

European Film Market Bursts Its Seams
Popularity has its price. A few years back, some critics felt that
the massive two-story Gropius Bau was a mite too spacious for the
European Film Market (EFM). But the opposite turned out to be true.
Last year, market director Beki Probst had to expand her facilities –
and fortunately found additional space in the "EFM Exhibitor Offices"
on Potsdamer Platz. This year, however, the EFM burst its seams again.
Altogether, 430 companies from 51 countries booked stands in the
adjacent facilities, in addition to 60 companies based in local
hotels. Further, 1,073 buyers from 54 countries were registered, an
increase of 3% over last year. Moreover, market screenings totaled
nearly 1,100, mostly in the venues at the Cinemaxx and Cinestar
multiplexes near the Potsdamer Platz.

Ask film marketeers how they evaluate the EFM, and they will cite its
February dates as a key reason for its growing success. Since the
American Film Market (AFM) in Los Angeles takes place in November, and
the Village International at Cannes doesn't open its doors until the
following May, the EFM at the Berlinale benefits from its position as
an attractive in-between rendezvous. Indeed, there are many film
professionals who would even go so far as to rate some EFM screenings
a notch higher than the entries in the Berlinale Competition. But now
the EFM is faced with a dilemma prompted by its growing pains. "It
appears that the Exhibitor Offices may not available in 2009," said
Beki Probst in an interview. "The owners would like to rent the space
out for a longer period of time." Negotiations are currently underway
to resolve the dilemma.

Rolling Stones and Rock Idols
For many, the presence of the Rolling Stones at the opening night
gala sent the tone for the entire festival. Scalpers could have asked
a small fortune for a ticket to the Berlinale premiere of Martin
Scorsese's Shine a Light (USA), a documentary on the band's two-night
performances at the Beacon Theater in New York in the autumn of 2006.
Dieter Kosslick, himself a one-time guitarist in a rock band, worked
tirelessly for months to bring the Rolling Stones in person to Berlin.
Once Scorsese and the Stones had confirmed their presence, he then had
to accommodate the city elite and festival VIPs with tickets to
screenings in the Berlinale Palast (1600 seats) and the Zoo Palast
(1000 seats), in addition to backup shows for hungry rock fans. As for
the echo in the press, some cited Shine a Light as a media event par
excellence in the annals of the Berlinale.

Other rock attractions powered the Panorama. Madonna's Filth and
Wisdom (UK), her directorial debut reportedly inspired by a liking for
Godard and Pasolini films, proved to be little more than an amusing
curiosity. Three quirky London flat dwellers – Ukrainian "gypsy punk
singer" Eugene Hutz (whose Gogol Bordello Band blares on the
soundtrack), joined by oddball actresses Holly Weston and Juliette
McClure – offer a glimpse into the London underground performance
scene. "I had to learn how to make a film," mused Madonna in an
interview, "so I paid for it myself!" Steven Seberg's documentary,
Patti Smith: Dream of Life (USA), fared better. Eleven years in the
making, this portrait of the legendary "Punk Poet Laureate" (singer,
songwriter, poet, painter, journalist) was hiked at the press
conference when she pulled out her guitar for a rendition of "Because
the Night" (cowritten in 1978 with Bruce Springsteen). Last, but not
least, there was the warmly received Neil Young documentary, CSNY:
Déjà Vu (USA), directed by Bernard Shakey (a pseudonym for Neil
Young). The film links the current anti-Iraq War protests by the
folk/rock CSNY band – read: (David) Crosby, (Stephen) Stills, (Graham)
Nash, (Neil) Young – with film and TV footage in their previous "Déjà"
album recorded at the height of the anti-Vietnam movement. CSNY: Déjà
Vu came directly from the Sundance festival for its Berlinale Special
screening.

Living Room Festival
"Dieter runs the Berlinale like the festival is in his living room,"
mused Paul Thomas Anderson, whose Magnolia (USA) had been awarded the
Golden Bear at the 2000 Berlinale. This year, Anderson returned to
Berlin with There Will Be Blood (USA), a free adaptation of Upton
Sinclair's bestseller Oil (published in 1927), his socialist novel
exposing the soft underbelly of the oil industry in southern
California during the corrupt Harding administration. From the outset,
There Will Be Blood was a critical favorite to win the Golden Bear,
the same went for Daniel Day Lewis to win the Silver Bear as Best
Actor. In the end, however, the International Jury decided otherwise:
Paul Thomas Anderson was awarded a Silver Bear for Best Director,
while the Silver Bear for Best Artistic Contribution was awarded to
film composer Jonny Greenwood.

With the Oscars scheduled but a week after the close of the Berlinale
– on February 24 – at which There Will Be Blood had already been
nominated in six categories, perhaps the International Jury cannot be
slighted for opting for what is referred to in the trade papers as
"festival fair play." After all, as confirmed in critics voting lists,
it can be argued that There Will Be Blood was the outstanding hit of
the 2008 Berlinale. Yet critics raised their collective eyebrows when
it was announced that two women jury members, French cult actress
Sandrine Bonnaire and Danish dogma director Susanne Bier, had canceled
their jury presence at the last minute. Thus, with seven jury members
on hand – instead of the usual nine – a couple blown fuses had
darkened Dieter's living room. A breakdown like this happens seldom at
an A-Category Festival.

Costa-Gavras Bears
Were critical voices justified in tracing the decision by the
international jury to award the Golden Bear to José Padilha's Tropa de
elite (The Elite Squad) (Brazil) to the presence of Constantin
Costa-Gavras on the jury as its president? Probably not, even though
the politically engaged Costa-Gavras had previously been awarded the
Golden Palm at the 1982 Cannes festival for Missing and the Golden
Bear at the 1990 Berlinale for The Music Box. Besides, The Elite Squad
was already a Brazilian blockbuster before the film even arrived in
Berlin. Padilha picks up where he left off in his highly charged
fiction-documentary Bus 174 (2002), the true story about a bungled
attempt by a SWAT police team to rescue hostages on a public bus that
was reported in detail on local television. Further, The Elite Squad,
based on a bestseller and shot in the vein of Fernando Meirelles's
acclaimed City of God (2002), is set in the past. Back in 1997, when
the Pope planned to visit Brazil, the news of his stay triggered a
drive by a corrupt Special Police Operation Battalion (BOPE) to rid
the Rio slums of drug barons, cost what it may. Brutality, violence,
torture, and executions became the order of the day. And that drug
war, according to Padilha, has continued unabated up to the present.
Errol Morris's Standard Operating Procedure (USA), awarded the
festival's runnerup Silver Bear, Special Jury Prize, certainly
deserved jury attention as the first documentary to ever appear in the
Berlinale competition. Also, a lot can be said for Morris picking up
where his Oscar-winning The Fog of War (2003) had left off. Remember
those "eleven lessons" learned by Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara
about the mistakes that he (along with the administrations under
Presidents Kennedy and Johnson) had made during the Vietnam War?
Moreover, since Morris had spent two years researching Standard
Operating Procedure, he can be praised for obtaining on-camera
interviews with five of the seven indicted MPs at the notorious Abu
Ghraib prison. But what really makes the documentary exceptional is
that three of those interviewed are women – among them former
Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who feels she had been made the
scapegoat by higher-ups in the military command who thus escaped
without a blemish on their records. Given that a festival audience is
generally known for its patience in watching long-winded talking-head
documentaries, the real test will come in April, when the 116-minute
Standard Operating Procedure is scheduled to reach American audiences.
Seldom has a documentary weighed in such lucid terms the pros and cons
of physical and mental torture against interrogation regulations as
stipulated in the military rulebook. The moral rationale of the
"standard operating procedure" at the Abu Ghraib prison will likely
concern the American courts for years to come.

Portfolio of Veterans
A glance at Mike Leigh's remarkable award record shows that only the
Berlinale was missing from his festival portfolio. That oversight was
corrected when his sparkling comedy Happy-Go-Lucky (UK) was presented
in Berlin. Sally Hawkins, as Poppy, an impish grammar-school teacher
with a knack for upsetting her macho driving instructor and martinet
dance teacher, was a runaway favorite from the outset to win the
Silver Bear for Best Actress. The crowd in the Berlinale Palast roared
its approval when the award was announced. Another festival veteran,
Amos Kollek, returned to the Berlinale for the third time – after Sue
(1997) and Bridgit (2002) – with Restless

(Israel/Germany/Canada/Belgium/France), the story of a bittersweet
father-son relationship between an unsettled New Yorker Jew and his
abandoned Israeli son. To some degree, Restless reflects the
director's relationship with his own father, Teddy Kollek (1911-2007),
the popular mayor of Jerusalem. It received the Guild Award of German
Art Houses.

Besides Mike Leigh and Amos Kollek, a dozen other veteran directors
were warmly welcomed at the festival. Isabelle Coixet (My Life Without
Me, 2002 Berlinale) returned with Elegy (USA) in the competition,
about an upright professor (Ben Kingsley) led astray by a voluptuous
student in his class (Penelope Cruz). Robert Guédiguian (Le promeneur
du Champ de Mars, 2005 Berlinale, about the last days of French
Premier François Mitterand) resurfaced with Lady Jane (France), a film
noir detective tale set in Marseilles among working-class friends.
Michel Gondry (The Science of Sleep, 2006 Berlinale) returned with Be
Kind Rewind (USA), an amusing out-of-competition closer that tips its
hat to legendary jazz pianist Fats Waller.

After a 23-year absence, the popularity of actor-director Nanni
Moretti (The Mass Is Over, Silver Bear, Special Jury Prize, 1985
Berlinale) was attested in Antonello Grimaldi's Caos Calmo (Quiet
Chaos) (Italy). To some extent, the figure of Pietro in Quiet Chaos is
a reprise of Moretti's own written-directed-acted La stanza del figlio
(The Son's Room), the Golden Palm winner at the 2001 Cannes festival.
Once again, we are asked to share a husband and father's grief, this
time at the death of his wife. To confront the numbness in his soul,
Pietro decides to hold a paternal vigil every day outside the school
of his 10-year-old daughter. As senseless as this desperate move may
sound, Nanni Moretti lends the tale an eccentric credibility.

Grads and Debutantes
Of the half-dozen entries by newcomers in the competition, only a few
films were memorable as distinctive works of cinematic art and not
just appropriate vehicles for the red-carpet parade. Justin Chadwick's
The Other Boleyn Girl (UK/USA) pairs Natalie Portman and Scarlet
Johanson as sisters in a gaudy Henry VIII costume drama. Dennis Lee's
Fireflies in the Garden (USA) stars Julia Roberts and Willem Dafoe in
a family drama of give-and-take grudges. Erick Zonca's Julia (France)
features Tilda Swinton as a desperate middle-aged alcoholic in a
rambling roadmovie thriller inspired by John Cassavetes's Gloria
(1980).

On the other hand, Dieter Kosslick takes justified pride in
furthering the careers of "graduates" from the Berlinale Talent
Campus. Thus, Lance Hammer, who had participated in the 2004 Campus,
was invited to compete this year with Ballast (USA), a tale of guilt
shot in the Mississippi Delta with locals playing themselves. Also,
Mexican director Fernando Eimbcke, a 2003 Campus participant, arrived
at this year's competition as a proven international talent, whose
first feature, Temporada de patos (Duck Season), had been a critical
hit at the 2004 Cannes festival in the Week of the Critics section. A
light comedy about a couple 14-year-old lads filling a boring weekend
at home, Duck Season in turn paved the way for Lake Tahoe (Mexico) at
this year's Berlinale. A minimalist comedy sprinkled with absurd
twists, Lake Tahoe picks up where Duck Season left off, starring the
same young actor (Diego Cataño, now a 16-year-old) as he wrestles with
growing pains and family frustrations in a sleepy provincial Yucatan
town. When he crashes the family car, he sets out to find an auto
repair shop – and runs headlong into one absurd situation after
another. Lake Tahoe was awarded the Alfred Bauer Prize by the
International Jury and the International Critics FIPRESCI Prize.
Another newcomer in the Berlinale competition to keep an eye on,
Philippe Claudel had already achieved fame as a writer before
directing his first feature film, Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've
Love You So Long) (France/Germany). Set in Nancy, I've Love You So
Long deals with past secrets and a fragile relationship between two
sisters (Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein). When the older
sister (Thomas) arrives unexpectedly on the scene after having served
a 15-year prison term, during which time all contact with her family
had been broken off, her presence has to be accepted by the husband
and two daughters as well. Tightly directed, with finely sketched
performances, Philippe Claudel's Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
received the Ecumenical Award and the Morgenpost Readers Award.

Germany Omnipresent
Upwards of 50 German entries are annually screened across the board
at the Berlinale, including an increasing number of international
coproductions. As a centrally located economic power on the European
continent, Germany's omnipresence as a film production force is
escalating year by year in accordance with the ever-expanding European
Union. This said, it was not surprising to find that the two German
films in the competition were distinctive for their cross-cultural
characteristics. At first glance, Doris Dörrie's Kirschblüten – Hanami
(Cherry Blossoms) appears to be as much Japanese as it is German,
particularly as the key noted second half of the film takes place in
Tokyo and under Mount Fuji. Further, Dörrie's last two films – How to
Cook Your Life, (2007), equating Zen Buddhism with cooking, and Der
Fischer und seine Frau (The Fisherman and His Wife) (2005), inspired
by a Japanese folk tale – are awash with unabashed infatuation for the
land and its culture. Now comes Cherry Blossoms, with its unmistakable
references to two Japanese classics: Ozu's Tokyo monogatari (Tokyo
Story) (1953) in the first half, followed by Kurosawa's Ikiru (To
Live) (1952) in the second. Add to this the metaphorical significance
of white-body makeup in the Butoh dance and the fleeting impermanence
of the cherry blossoms, and you enter the world of a puzzled
provincial Bavarian trying to figure out why his late wife had been
secretly enchanted by Japanese rituals. Before the film arrived at the
Berlinale, Cherry Blossoms had received two Bavarian Film Prizes for
Best Production and Best Actor (Elmar Wepper).

Luigi Falorni's Feuerherz (Heart of Fire) (Germany/Austria) sparked
controversy before the film had even premiered in the Berlinale
competition. Set in war-torn Eritrea of 1981, Heart of Fire follows
the destiny of a 10-year-old girl, a "child-soldier" taken by her
father from an orphanage school run by Italian nuns to be recruited
for the rebellion against Ethiopia. The controversy arose when the
bestseller that had inspired the film – Senait Meharis's autobiography
with the same title (published in 2004) – was challenged in the courts
and reported in the press as drifting far from the truth. An Italian
director, who had studied cinema at the Munich Film and Television
School, Luigi Falorni is best known for his documentary, Die
Geschichte vom weinenden Kamel (The Story of the Weeping Camel) (2003,
Oscar Nomination 2005). Another film on the Competition dealing with
child abduction, Damian Harris's Gardens of the Night (USA/UK),
focused on the evil of child prostitution in the United States.
Neither Heart of Fire nor Gardians of the Night fared well with
critics and juries.

Thanks to production support lent by Fatih Akin, Özgür Yildirim, a
fellow Turkish-German based in Hamburg, could write and direct Chiko,
the story of a street drug-dealer who hopes to strike it rich by
taking over a territory and running it with his friends in cahoots
with a mafia boss. Inspired by Martin Scorsese Manhattan mafia films,
particularly Good Fellas (USA, 1990), Özgür Yildirim stays close to
the Turkish milieu he knows best. As Chiko (Denis Moschitto) muscles
his way to the top to gain the confidence of Hamburg mafia boss
Brownie (Moritz Bleibtreu), he gradually loses sight of his friends
and pays the consequences. Programmed in the Panorama, Chiko scores as
a gangster thriller narrated at a fast clip, although conspicuously
absent of German cops, good or bad, to add a touch of credibility.

Absurdistan and Absurdities
By far, the best German film at the Berlinale was Veit Helmer's
delightful comedy Absurdistan. Awarded a Bavarian Film Prize, in
addition to being critically acclaimed at Sundance, Absurdistan could
only been seen in the European Film Market. Narrated with a minimum of
dialogue in the vein of a Sergei Parajanov fairy tale, Absurdistan is
set in a make-believe mountain village (apparently in Central Asia),
where peaceful cohabitation between the sexes is equated with a life
giving underwater system. When the community's water supply suddenly
dries up, inventive young Temelko (German actor Maximilian Mauff)
struggles to stop the leak in the pipes before a long-awaited
celestial alignment appears in the heavens. According to a
fortune-teller, only an appropriate constellation of stars can
guarantee Temelko the desired connubial bliss with his childhood
girlfriend Aya (Czech actress Kristyna Malerova). With an armful of
awards for two previous feature films – Tuvalu (1999) and Gate to
Heaven (2003) – Veit Helmer ranks as the most provocative and
promising filmmaker on the German scene today.

Don't miss Football Under Cover (Germany), a documentary by Ayat
Najafi and David Assmann! Screened in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino
section, the film takes the viewer to a Tehran stadium packed with
thousands of cheering women. They are watching a friendly soccer match
between the Iran national women's team and a thrown-together amateur
team from Berlin-Kreuzberg. Because men are barred from the stadium,
only camerawomen were present to chronicle the event, a rousing match
that ended in a tie. As amusing as this sounds, the real story is what
happened behind the scenes to enable the match to take place in the
first place. One absurdity is piled upon another by Iranian
authorities to sidetrack the event – until, finally, after a full year
of negotiations, permission is finally given. Then, when the Kreuzberg
girls arrive in Tehran, the last absurdity – an Iranian code of proper
behavior for women in a stadium – is thrown to the wind in the sheer
joy of playing the game!

German History Lessons
Look in the Guinness Book of Records, and you will find that Barbara
& Winfried Junge's Die Kinder von Golzow (The Children of Golzow)
scores as the longest running documentary portrait in the history of
the cinema. The series began in a first-grade class in the rural
village of Golzow (near the border to Poland) in August of 1961,
immediately after the erection of the Berlin Wall had dramatically
split Germany into two separate halves. When Karl Gass at the DEFA
Documentary Studio approached Winfried Junge (later joined by editor
Barbara Junge as codirector) with the idea for The Children of Golzow,
his aim was to document the life-styles of a new generation of
children educated in a socialist land. Later, however, the thematic
focus shifted to the experiences of these young men and women after
they had finished their schooling. Then, over the years, the Junge
team followed them as they chose different professions, married and
founded families, and consequently had to deal with the social changes
brought about by German unification.

Thus, as a series that closely chronicled two great social and
historical moments in East/West German history, Die Kinder von Golzow
will increase in importance for years to come as a scholarly research
source. Last year, when the first half of the closing documentary
segment premiered at the 50th Leipzig DOKfestival under the title Und
wenn sie nicht gestorben sind… Die Kinder von Golzow (And If they
Haven't Passed Away… The Children of Golzow), it chronicled only the
destinies of the last three remaining women in the class. This year,
when the second half of the closing finale, …dann leben sie immer noch
(…Then They are Living Happily Ever After), was programmed in the
International Forum of New Cinema at the Berlinale, it chronicled the
lives of two remaining men in the class. Taken altogether, the
documentation of all members of the original Children of Golzow class
amounts to 2,570 minutes of viewing time, or nearly 43 running hours –
a documentation covering 47 years of East/West German history. Indeed,
a film of the century!

Gunther Scholz's Sag mir, wo die Schönen sind … (The Beauties of
Leipzig), programmed in the Panorama, chronicles the lives of nine
women. Today, they are all around forty. But back in 1989, when the
film begins, they were twenty and the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
still existed. At that time, when they entered a contest for "Miss
Leipzig," this publicized event in socialist East Germany was unusual,
to say the least. Today, most of these women are married, some are
still single, one is getting divorced; they have children, or are
having a baby. One lives in Switzerland, another in Dubai, others in
western Germany or still in Leipzig.

When the Leipziger Volkszeitung promoted the "Miss Leipzig 1989"
beauty contest, Gerhard Gäbler, a student and amateur photographer,
hit upon the idea of a photo-documentary project and asked the
candidates if they would agreed to a sitting. Some contestants opted
for a double-portrait – one at work, the other at home. Eighteen years
later, when Gunther Scholz visited these women together with Gerhard
Gäbler, they agreed to bring the stories of their lives up to the
present. Today, their paths-of-life might seem puzzling or enigmatic,
yet for their day their hopes for the future were rather typical. And
that's what makes The Beauties of Leipzig a warmly human viewing
experience – in addition to being an important social and historical
document.

East-West Turnstile
There was a time when the Berlinale took pride in showcasing films
from Eastern Europe. Here was a major international film festival
serving as an East-West axis in the center of Europe to facilitate
communication and foster rapport among neighboring countries. No more,
it seems. This year, Hungary, one of the strongest filmlands in the
CentEast region, was conspicuous for its absence. In fact, not a
single entry from Central and Eastern Europe was programmed in the
competition. And only one film from CentEast Europe was booked for the
Berlinale Palast: Andrzej Wajda's Katyn (Poland), relegated to an
out-of-competition slot.

To be sure, Katyn was an important film for both Poland and Germany,
particularly in light of the fact that the massacre of 8,000 Polish
officers in the Katyn Forest in March of 1940 had long been propagated
by the Soviet Union as an act of German barbarity. Only after the fall
of communism has it been proven otherwise. To find a way to shoot
Katyn at all, Wajda drew upon dozens of letters, documents, and
contemporary records to knit together a story of the massacre from
separate yet interlinking accounts. Since one of them relates to the
death of his own father among the slain officers, Katyn can be viewed
as a personal requiem. Asked at the press conference about the film's
nomination for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category,
Andrzej Wajda responded: "My only wish at the moment is that Katyn be
shown in Russia."

Some worthy entries from Central and Eastern Europe did find their
way into the Berlinale sidebars. Anna Melikian's Rusalka (Mermaid)
(Russia), an adult fairy tale about an orphaned blithe spirit who can
fulfill wishes, opened the Panorama and was awarded an International
Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize. Pavel Koutecky and Miroslav Janek's Obcan
Havel (Citizen Havel) (Czech Republic), an intimate, revealing, urbane
documentary portrait of writer-playwright Vaclav Havel, who had served
as the first President of the Czech Republic (1993-2003), belonged
arguably in the Berlinale Palast instead of the International Forum of
New Cinema. Boris Despodov's Corridor #8 (Bulgaria), a documentary on
the stumbling efforts of the European Union to build a modern highway
on the traces of the ancient Via Egnatia (linking the Black and
Adriatic Seas), comes across as absurdly funny when the populations of
Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania were asked their opinions of
why the "corridor" is running through their national living-rooms in
the first place. Programmed in the Forum, Corridor #8 was awarded an
Ecumenical Prize.

Far-East Pagoda
Far-East cinema flooded the competition as though the Berlinale
Palast had become a tiered pagoda of Asian dreams. But despite the
presence of some name directors on the program, the echo in the press
left the impression that Asian cinema may be losing some its luster on
the world festival stage. China's Wang Xiaoshuai returned to the
Berlinale (Silver Bear, Beijing Bicycle, 2001) with Zuo You (In Love
We Trust) and was awarded a Silver Bear for Best Screenplay by the
International Jury. In Love We Trust almost begs belief in this
bleeding-heart tale of divorced parents faced with a life-saving
decision. As implied in the original Chinese title, Left Right
(meaning "conflicting perspectives"), the remarried parents (with
other partners) find themselves in a dilemma when told by doctors that
their leukaemia stricken daughter can only be saved by a bone-marrow
transplant. Since they themselves don't qualify as donors, the sole
solution is to reunited for a time to have another child. With the
credibility of the story on the line, Lan Weiwei, as the distraught
mother, lends the film that needed measure of sympathy.
Japan's legendary 77-year-old director Yoji Yamada was another
welcomed guest in the Berlinale competition. His Samurai films, in
particular, have made him a festival favorite: Tasogare Seibei (The
Twilight Samurai) (2002 Berlinale), Kakushi ken oni no tsume (The
Hidden Blade) (2005 Berlinale), and Bushi no ichibun (Love and Honor)
(2007 Berlinale). This time, in Kabei (Our Mother), he turned to
Japanese prewar history in the story of a conscientious writer and
professor who was imprisoned in 1940 for "thought crimes" against the
Imperial government. Based on a true-life biography, the afflicted yet
resolute wife and mother, together with her two young daughters (one
the biographer herself), must deal with the unknown fate of the
husband and father as they go about their everyday lives. The presence
of the woman's caring sister, her scolding father, and an admiring
student of the professor add to the emotional exchange as events
unfold towards the attack on Pearl Harbor and the news of the writer's
death in prison. Although a melodrama anchored to a predictable
outcome, Our Mother is memorable nonetheless for the poignant nuances
in the acting performances.

Korea's Hong Sangsoo has carved out an atypical reputation as a cult
director who deals in the banalities of the everyday. His films,
charged with contradictions found in human relationships, seek
resolutions in random or spontaneous conversations. After competing at
Cannes with the enigmatic Yeojaneun namjaui miraeda (Woman Is the
Future of Man) (2004) and Geuk jang jeon (Tale of Cinema) (2005), Hong
presented his Haebyonui yoin (Woman on the Beach) (2006) at last
year's Berlinale in the Panorama. This year, he returned to compete in
the Berlinale Palast with Bam gua nat (Night and Day), set in Paris
and running at a lengthy 145 minutes. Nothing much happens in Night
and Day, save that the 40 year-old Kim Sung-nam (Kim Youngho), a
successful painter, is on the run from a jail sentence in Korea for a
minor derelict (drunk and smoking marijuana), misses his wife, and
doesn't know exactly what he's doing in Paris. Chance meetings with
fellow Koreans in this "city of love" lead to further complications
until, in the end, his former life in Korea fades into the past.
Hongkong's Johnnie To, a regular visitor in the past to the
International Forum of New Cinema, was invited this year to compete at
the Berlinale with Man jeuk (Sparrow) (Hongkong/China). Four years in
the making, and often interrupted during shooting, Sparrow – a term
for a pickpocket in Hongkong – forsakes the director's usual
gun-and-gangster culture for a thriller set amid thieves and
pickpockets on the streets of Hongkong. When a mysterious woman
appears on the scene, who knows the secrets of the trade inside out,
she enlists a gang of "sparrows" to settle a score with a tycoon boss.
An spotty thriller at best, Sparrow was hardly competition caliber.

Near East Neorealism
One of the highlights of the competition came from Iran. Majid Majidi
is best known for winning a bundle of prizes for Bacheha-Ye aseman
(Children of Heaven), among them the Grand Prix des Amériques at the
1997 Montreal World Film Festival and the first-ever Oscar Nomination
for an Iranian director. A neorealist tale about poor children
secretly sharing the same pair of shoes on school days, Children of
Heaven featured veteran actor Reza Najie in the role of the stern yet
compassionate father faced with a meager existence. Once again, in
Avaze gonjeshk ha (The Song of Sparrows), he plays a poor man
struggling to support his family with the modest income earned by a
motorbike taxi service. Down on his luck, he had lost his job at an
ostrich farm when he let the bird run away! An actor with many talents
to convey the desperate side of life, Reza Najie was awarded the
Silver Bear for Best Actor.

Unfortunately overlooked for a slot in the Berlinale competition,
Israeli director Eran Riklis's Lemon Tree (Israel/Germany/France) was
programmed as a Panorama Special, was an immediate hit with critics,
and was voted the First Prize by the Panorama audience. Following in
the vein of his previous international hit, The Syrian Bride (2004),
Lemon Tree features the same Israeli actress (Hiam Abbas) in a moving
story that reduces the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a comprehensive
human dimension. The setting is a small Palestinian village on the
West Bank, where a 45-year-old widow (Abbas) lives alone in a house
surrounded by her lemon trees. When an Israeli minister builds a house
across the way, he feels that the lemon trees are a security risk:
they could hide terrorists and (even worse) might disturb the routine
of his protective bodyguards. When he issues an order to have the
trees must be cut down, the widow rebels – on the grounds that the
lemon trees had been planted by her family generations ago. A court
case ensues, one that escalates into myriad complications on the human
scale. Lemon Tree deserves a long life on the festival circuit.

Retrospective Tributes
Not enough praise can be showered on Rainer Rother for organizing the
all embracing retrospective honoring the late great Luis Buñuel
(1900-1983). Among the 32 films programmed in the retrospective were
four separate screenings of his surrealist masterpiece, Un chien
andalou (An Adalusian Dog) (France, 1929), each with different
contemporary musical accompaniment. A restored version of Jean
Epstein's La chute de la maison Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher)
(France 1928), on which Buñuel worked as assistant director, could be
seen with musical and acoustical accompaniment by a Dutch
improvisational group. In an interview, published in the Die Zeit
weekly to coincide with the retrospective, French actress Jeanne
Moreau spoke with warm affection about the director, throwing light on
the surreal concept behind the making of La journal d'une femme de
chambre (Diary of a Chambermaid) (France, 1964) in which she played
the title role. According to Moreau, that singular adaptation of
Octave Mirbeau's novel (published in 1900) offers arguably the most
precise insights into the complexities of the Buñuel oeuvre.
Italian master Francesco Rosi (born 1922) was also honored with a
retrospective tribute. Billed as a "master of engaged cinema," Rosi
was able to transport the principles of Italian Neorealism into the
1960s with some masterpieces that still deserve the attention of
cineastes and the respect of historians. Noteworthy, too, was the
Silver Bear for Best Director awarded to Francesco Rosi at the 1962
Berlinale for Salvatore Giuliano, a personal account of the life and
death of the famous Sicilian bandit who was assassinated in 1950 and
became a legend thereafter. In that acclaimed masterpiece, Rosi
chronicled in some detail the separatist movement in Sicily following
the Second World War, the subsequent communist peasant drive to
challenge the Italian authorities, and then the link between a corrupt
police and the mafia. Francesco Rosi received an Honorary Golden Bear
at this year's Berlinale.

The International Forum of New Cinema also honored 72-year-old
Japanese director Koji Wakamatsu with a four-film retrospective
tribute. The outstanding film in this series was Asama sanso e no
michi (United Red Army), aka The Path to Asama Sanso, a 190-minute
docu-drama about the postwar rise of the terrorist left in Japan.
United Red Army begins in 1960, when militant students protested the
renewal of the US-Japanese Security Pact, and ends in 1972, when a
small band of armed defenders withstood a 10-day siege at the Asama
ski lodge, during which two policemen died. Along the way, and just
prior to the siege of the ski lodge, 14 members of the group had
fallen victim to the fanatical ideological dictates of two URA
leaders. Since Koji Wakamatsu himself knew many of the student rebels
personally, he lends a chilling authenticity to the events documented
in the three hour-plus report. Don't miss it!

AWARDS

International Jury
Golden Bear
Tropa de elite (The Elite Squad) (Brazil), dir José Padilha
Silver Bear, Grand Jury Prize
Standard Operating Procedure (USA), Errol Morris
Silver Bear, Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood (USA)
Silver Bear, Best Actress
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky (UK), dir Mike Leigh
Silver Bear, Best Actor
Reza Najie, Avaze Gonjeshk-ha ( Song of Sparrows), dir Majid Majidi
Silver Bear, Outstanding Artistic Contribution (Music)
Jonny Greenwood, There Will Be Blood (USA), dir Paul Thomas Anderson
Silver Bear, Best Screenplay
Wang Xiaoshuai, Zuo You (In Love We Trust) (China), dir Wang Xiaoshuai
Alfred Bauer Prize, Film of Particular Innovation
Lake Tahoe (Mexico), dir Fernando Qôp