Berlin Fest Changes Award Named After Founder Following Nazi Revelations

By Tom Grater

An impoverished laborer returns home one day to find that social services have taken his children, after the family’s increasingly dire circumstances push his wife to commit a desperate act. With a corrupt local administrator blocking the way to a fair hearing to get them back, the man decides to cross the country on foot in order to plead his case to the government in Belgrade.

TEHRAN, Iran -- An Iranian filmmaker who just won the Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear has been summoned to serve a one-year prison sentence over his movies, his lawyer said Wednesday.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian filmmaker who just won the Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear has been summoned to serve a one-year prison sentence over his movies, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Overshadowed by a grisly, racially motivated shooting in western Germany and the growing pains of new festival leadership, this year’s Berlinale served to illuminate the market dynamics and global issues set to impact the international film and television industry in the run-up to Cannes — provided coronavirus stays away from the Croisette.

Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof, whose sixth feature “There is no Evil” won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear on Saturday, is one of his country’s most prominent directors even though none of his films have screened in Iran where they are banned. In 2011, the year he won two prizes at Cannes with his censorship-themed “Goodbye,” Rasoulof was sentenced with fellow director Jafar Panahi to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on filmmaking for alleged anti-regime propaganda.

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s drama “There Is No Evil” took home the top Golden Bear prize at the 2020  Berlin Film Festival.

It’s a brave young director who has the gumption to revisit Alfred Doblin’s 1929 Weimar Republic classic Berlin Alexanderplatz. A 1931 film version directed by Piel Jutzi was notably followed by Rainer W.

Favorite thing about Berlin? I love the mix of local Berliners and the many cultures that call Berlin their home. It makes for one of the most exciting cities and festivals in the world.

Favorite thing about Berlin? I love the mix of local Berliners and the many cultures that call Berlin their home. It makes for one of the most exciting cities and festivals in the world.

By Tom Grater

For 25 years, from 1992’s “La Frontera” through 2017’s ”A Fantastic Woman,” a subsequent Oscar winner, the Berlinale has prized a rich trove of Chilean movies.

The 70th anniversary of the Berlin International Film Festival should be a cause for celebration. But recent revelations about the festival's first director, Dr.

The Rugby World Cup-winning Springbok team of 2019 added another fantastic award to their impressive list of recent accolades when they scooped the prestigious Laureus Team of the Year Award in Berlin on Monday evening.

Defiant Dedryck Boyata insists Scottish football's snipers have got it all wrong because Celtic helped make him a Belgium star.

In today’s film news roundup, Noomi Rapace gets a starring role, ArcLight Cinemas hires Ted Mundorff and a “Karn Evil 9” movie is in the works.

By Tom Grater

Picture Tree Intl. has secured global sales rights of Berlin comedy “Nightlife,” directed by Simon Verhoeven, following his last film “Welcome to Germany,” which was Germany’s comic relief to the refugee crisis. The film sold to more than 60 territories and screened at more than 50 festivals worldwide, while being the No.1 box office hit in Germany in 2016.

Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan,” which premieres in the Berlinale Special Gala section of the Berlin Film Festival.