The Bear Contenders
This year, 23 movies compete for the Berlinale's top award, the golden bear. An introduction in pictures.
The Missing
The film stars Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones in the lead roles. Maggie, the mother of two daughters ekes out a meagrely existence through her farm. One day an old Indian knocks on her door; he turns out to be her father. She refuses to acknowledge him, but then her elder daughter is kidnapped by a gang of marauders. Only her father can help her. An excellent tracker, he joins her in her pursuit of the murdering desperados. The director Ron Howard has described the film as "a story of healing and reconciliation that also has the twists and turns of a thriller."
Samaritan Girl (Samaria)
Yeo-Gin acts as a manager to her friend Jae-Young, who is a prostitute. She keeps a watch on her earnings and her customers. One day, Jae-Young jumps out of the window to escape the police who swoop in looking for underage prostitutes. The jump proves fatal and the dying Young then wants to see the young man she was in love with. Yeo-Gin finds him, but he refuses to go unless she sleeps with him. By the time they reach the hospital Jae-Young is dead. And from that moment, Yeo-Gin sleeps with all of Jae-Young's customers.
Intimate Strangers (Confidences Trop Intimes)
In her search for a psycho-analyst, Anna knocks on a wrong door by mistake one day and ends up unburdening her marriage problems to a financial advisor, William Faber. As time goes by, the bond between them grows. Each time they meet, William is moved and fascinated to learn the kind of secrets that women usually keep to themselves – secrets that only he will ever hear.
Ae Fond Kiss
A peek into multicultural Britain: Casim Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants is a successful DJ in Glasgow. His parents want him to marry his beautiful cousin, Jasmine, but he is in love with a Catholic girl, Roisin. His dreams and his parents’ wishes collide and the repercussions of his relationship with Roisin reach far and wide as cultures clash and personalities collide.
Witnesses (Svjedoci)
The film is based on Juria Pavičić's novel "Alblaster Sheep," which created a lot of controversy when it was first published in Croatia. It is a highly critical look at the war that ravaged the former Yugoslavia and one man's attempts to redeem himself. Private Krešo who loses a leg in the war tries to help the 11-year-old daughter of a Serbian businessman escape the clutches of his ex-comrades. Does he find redemption or do his former comrades manage to bar his way?
Lost Embrace (El abrazo partido)
Ariel's world is a small, rather run-down shopping centre in downtown Bueno Aires. Many young people of Ariel's age are busy tracing their ethnic roots in the hope of obtaining foreign documents which will ensure a better life. Ariel's interest lies elsewhere, he wants to know why his father left them suddenly and went to fight for Israel. And then one day, Ariel's father appears.
Country of my Skull
In 1995, Langston Whitfield, an American journalist travels to South Africa to report on the Truth and Reconciliation Comission for the Washington Post. The admissions he witnesses; the quagmire of crime, delusion, vengeance and the way the victims and perpetrators confront each other, transcends the bounds of the American journalist’s imagination. During the course of the hearings, he makes friends with a white South African writer Anna Malan, who is also reporting on the hearings. Based on Antjie Krog’s novel of the same name, the film stars Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche in the main roles.
Triple Agent
France in the year 1936, at the time of the Spanish Civil War: Fidor, a former General in the Tsar’s army arrives in France with his young Greek wife, Arisone. Fidor is constantly on the move, carrying out secret assignments, while not hiding the fact that he is a spy. The only thing he does not reveal is the identity of the people he is working for. Triple Agent is an interesting tale of betrayal, deception and intrigue and is based on a piece of writing, which has not been confirmed as being entirely truthful.
20:30:40
This film is about three women in Taipei whose love lives are as unpredictable as the minor earthquakes that periodically hit the city. Xiao Jie is twenty, dreams of being a pop star and is relishing her newly found freedom away from her strict parents. Xiang Xiang, a thirty-something flight attendant, is caught between two men. Lily Zhao is a 40-year-old divorcee living life to the fullest as a single woman. A look at the life of three women of different ages but marooned together by their experiences.
25 Degrees in Winter (25 degrés en hiver)
It’s an exceptionally warm day in Brussels as a delivery van makes its way onto the motorway. The four people sitting in the car include 39-year-old Miguel, whose job is to deliver travel documents. Miguel is the father of seven-year-old Laura. Also in the van are 30-year-old Sonia from the Ukraine, who has come to Belgium illegally hoping to find her missing husband, and 57-year-old Abuelita, who is Miguel’s mother and Laura’s grandmother. She’s just dying to know how Sonia’s quest will turn out . . .Miguel is in the process of delivering travel documents to a very important client. But how on earth can he get on with the job when he has to contend with these three women?
Beautiful Country
The compelling story of a Vietnamese boy who sets off on an odyssey in search of his American father. Armed with the information that his father was from Texas and that he had big feet, he sets out on his journey. He reaches New York with the help of a Chinese woman, Ling, but Texas is still far away.
Nightsongs (Die Nacht singt ihre Lieder)
A young couple in a big city: She is full of life and wants to have fun, he is a writer whose career is on the downhill. He spends his whole time on the sofa, mourning because of his rejection slips. His parents' arrival brings a upheaval in their lives, but then they leave, just as quickly as they appeared. Partly because she is at a loss at their sudden departure, but partly also out of protest, the young woman spends the whole night visiting the city's hotspots, dancing and flirting. She goes back home again, nothing's changed and yet, everything's changed. Romuald Karmakar, the director of the film describes it "as a film about the absence of hope."
Maria Full of Grace (Maria, llena eres de gracia)
Seventeen-year-old Maria lives in a small town north of Bogotá , where she works on a rose plantation. Maria has a spirited, impulsive nature. One day, she gets into a terrible row with her boss and promptly decides to throw in the towel. Maria’s relatives are less than pleased. What they don’t know is that Maria is pregnant. She decides to take her chances in the city, where she ends up working as a drug courier: She ends up on a plane to the U.S., with 62 little packets of heroin in her stomach.
Head On (Gegen die Wand)
Two people with failed suicide attempts behind them meet at a hospital: Cahit and Sibel, both of Turkish extraction, see each other as their redemption. For young Sibel, Cahit promises to be the key to freedom, whereas for Cahit the friendship is a way of saving himself. They gradually fall in love with each other, but it is not all roses.
First Love (Primo Amore)
Vittorio is a man who loves women. His heart, however, is destined for just the one partner – his dream woman. And then, one day, he sees her. Sonia. Young, pretty, graceful and charming. But is she really the right woman, his one and only? Vittoria is nagged by doubt. It’s the story of a man who is the victim of his obsessions and who loses control over his own life. It is also the story of a woman who cannot escape her lover’s projections.
Your Next Life (La Vida Que Te Espera)
Gildo is a widower, and his daughter Val has a central hand in managing the farm. One day one of Gildo's cows wanders into the farm of his neighbour Severo, where the cow is inseminated by one of Severo's bulls. The two men agree that Severo should have the calf. When Val goes to Severo with the calf, he makes her a hostage and alleges that it is not the calf of the wandering cow that they have given him. A fight ensures between Severo and Gildo, in which Severo dies. Severo's son comes to his funeral and promptly falls in love with Val, without knowing that she is Gildo's daughter.
In Your Hands (Forbrydelser)
Anna, a theologian, is married to Frank. She loves children, but the dear Lord seems to have decided it is not to be. Then she is offered a job as a chaplain at the women's block in a prison. One of the women whose spiritual welfare she has to look after is Kate, who has a mystic image among her peers. For Anna, who is finally pregnant, Kate's miraculous hands prove to be a dilemma as well as a ray of hope. A doctor's examination reveals that her unborn child has certain disabilities -- should she trust her God or Kate's hands to make her unborn child well?
Daybreak (Om Jag Vänder Mig Om)
Three episodes, loosely woven, recounting stories of deception and other human frailties: Agnes and Rickard are moving to another town, they host a farewell dinner for their best friends. By next morning, things have come to light that rock their relationship to the core. Anita decides to visit her ex-husband, who she has not seen for three years. There are a lot of questions to which she needs answers.
The Final Cut
Alan Hackman is the best editor at Zöe technologies, whose so-called Zöe chips chronicle an entire liefespan in images. However, the technology has its opponents, who are prepared to fight for the right to forget. One day, Hackman a cold-hearted man, feels something snap inside him, when he sees a picture. The picture that has haunted him from his childhood sets him on a search for the truth beyond the manipulated pictures.
Monster
Charlize Theron plays Aileen Wuornos, a lesbian serial killer who was executed for killing six men in October 2002. Aileen meets Selby, a young woman who has been sent to Florida by her parents to get over her homosexuality. Aileen spends the night with Selby and experiences happiness for the first time in her life. In her attempt to have fun with Selby, Aileen picks up a man as she has done may times before. But this time things go wrong, the client gets rough with her and she shoots him.
Before Sunset
Jesse and Celine once met in Vienna and spent a night together roaming the streets. Nine years later, they accidentally meet each other again in Paris. Jesse is promoting his novel at a bookstore when he sees Celine among the audience. He drops everything in order to be with her. They realize they still have a lot to say to each other.
Red Lights (Feux Rouges)
It is summer in Paris. The weather is hot and sunny as the holiday weekend dawns. Antoine, an insurance salesman, is waiting for his wife, Hélène, a successful lawyer. The couple are about to pick up their children from a holiday camp. It looks as though Hélène will be a while and so Antoine decides to down an ice cool beer or two while he’s waiting. The couple have a long car journey to the south of France ahead of them: hours of driving at the peak of the holiday season. The heat, the traffic jams, the heavy traffic. What a treat. When his wife deserts him on the trip, Antoine picks up a hitchhiker. The encounter will have serious consequences for Antoine and his marriage to Hélène.
Trilogy: The Weaping Meadow (Trilogia: To livadi pou dakrisi)
The director Theo Angelopoulos takes on a wide-ranging historical panorama as the subject of his latest trilogy. It is the story of two people Eleni and Alexis, beginning in Odessa and ending in New York. It is a story of love, exile and seperation, chronicling the collapse of ideologies and the trial of history.