Glamour and Politics Take Center Stage as Berlin Film Festival Returns to Scale

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights for German director Christian Petzold’s new film Afire, following its award-winning world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

with a bang.On February 25, the 32-year-old Berlinale jury president arrived on the red carpet for the festival's closing ceremony wearing a sheer gown with knitted black accents, including strategically. placed pockets.

wore what appears to be the , which features a structured blazer with a ruched waist and floor-length leather skirt. I'm only made more confident by the fact that Lawrence also wore Alaïa's , which were featured heavily throughout the collection by creative designer Pieter Mulier. Unlike , Jennifer Lawrence kept the blazer's lapels down, showing off a bit of skin with the braless, plunging look.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Veteran French docmaker Nicolas Philibert was the surprise winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, taking the prize for his film “On the Adamant,” a poignant observational study of a Paris mental health care facility. He received the award from jury president Kristen Stewart, after the star offered an extended and plainly heartfelt ode to the film’s humanity and simplicity: “People have gone in circles for thousands of years trying to pin down what can be deemed art, who’s allowed to do it and what determines its value,” she said, citing the boundary-pushing nature of the festival, and namechecking such opposing philosophers on the matter as Aristotle, Barthes, Sontag and Beavis & Butthead, before concluding, “For all of us, you just know it when you see it.”

Guy Lodge Film Critic The official awards ceremony of this year’s Berlin Film Festival is under way, with Kristen Stewart’s jury set to announce their winners from the Competition selections. This post will be updated as they’re announced.Previously announced: AUDIENCE AWARDS Panorama Audience Award: “Sira,” Apolline TraoréSecond Prize: “The Burdened,” Amr GamalThird Prize: “Midwives,” Léa Fehner Panorama Documentary Audience Award: “Kokomo City,” D. SmithSecond Prize: “The Eternal Memory,” Maite AlberdiThird Prize: “The Cemetery of Cinema,” Thierno Souleymane Diallo

The competition winners of the 73rd Berlinale are about to start rolling in as the festival draws to a close Saturday evening.

Kristen Stewart is standing up for a second silent demonstration during the 2023 Berlinale Film Festival.

The Berlin Film Festival has made one of its highest priorities this year to stand with “the courageous protesters in Iran as they defend themselves against a violent, undemocratic regime.”

Dame Helen Mirren ditched her signature bob for ageless platinum waves as she attended the Berlin premiere of Golda.The actress, who last year admitted to still loving her former boyfriend, Liam Neeson, stunned as she attended the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival in Germany on Monday and was pictured with long flowing hair extensions. Helen, 77, sported an off-the-shoulder floor-length black dress that featured a low-cut ruffled neckline, which she paired with gold chandelier earrings as she walked the red carpet.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema has unveiled its 85-title lineup for the edition that starts later this month (February 28 to March 7, 2023). Elements include a 10-film competition section, a 10-film documentary film section, a tribute to the Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu; a thematic section “Asian Diaspora Cinema” offering a panorama of works by directors from Asian countries living in exile; and a Philippines cinema sidebar. Fiction films in competition include: Azerbaijan’s “Cold as Marble,” by Asif Rustamov; China’s “In Our Prime,” by Liu Yulin; Korea’s “A Letter from Kyoto,” by Kim Min-ju; India’s: “Behind Veils,” by Praveen Morshhale; Iran’s “No End,” by Nader Saievar; Mongolia’s “The Sales Girl,” by Sengedorj Janchivdorj; The Philippines’s “Feast,” by Brillante Mendoza; Singapore’s “#LookAtMe,” by Ken Kwek; and Vietnam’s “Memento Mori: Earth,” by Marcus Vu Manh Cuong. The president of the jury is Lee Yong-kwan, president of the Busan film festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Berlin Film Festival has returned to its first fully in person edition since 2020. But this year, the Berlinale has come back with a vengeance, and added something that it wasn’t especially known for in its pre-pandemic days: star power. Indeed, it’s been hard not to bump into a famous person in the German city — almost giving this previously mostly auteur driven gathering a vibe that more closely resembles the latest versions of Sundance or Toronto. Artistic director Carlo Chatrian told Variety Sunday that A-list names help raise awareness for the festival’s core mission – to celebrate movies and encourage audiences to return to theaters.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief In the Alex Gibney documentary “Boom! Boom: The World vs. Boris Becker,” the then-active tennis player recalls a 1980s conversation with a tabloid newspaper editor who told him that only three subjects were guaranteed to get the German public’s attention: Adolf Hitler, German reunification and Boris Becker. Released from prison in the U.K. in December, Becker turned up in person in Berlin on Sunday to attend a press conference. Once again he dominated the court. Quotable, self-deprecating and larger than life, Becker maintained the candor that was characteristic of the multiple interviews he gave to filmmaker Alex Gibney — himself a tennis player and Becker admirer.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Berlin Film Festival is once again finding house room for Hong Kong’s most commercially successful enfant terrible, Soi Cheang, aka Cheang Pou Soi, who previously brought film noir “Limbo” to the Berlinale. This time he attends with “Mad Fate,” a film about destiny that may be Cheang’s most bloodthirsty, but which the director says is intended to be inspirational. It plays in the Berlinale Special section. Born in Macau, Cheang developed his career at the feet of Ringo Lam, Andrew Lau, Joe Ma, Wilson Yip and Johnnie To, the great stylists of the crime and action film genre across the Pearl River estuary in Hong Kong. To, who is on the Berlin jury this year, is also a producer on “Mad Fate” through his Makerville label.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Berlinale red carpet on Saturday became a protest platform against Iran’s repressive regime when a group of Iranian filmmakers and talents, joined by jury president Kristen Stewart, chanted “Women, Life, Freedom!” and demanded the release of imprisoned journalists and an Iranian rapper. Actress Golshifteh Farahani, who is also on the jury; “Holy Spider” actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi; and “The Siren” director Sepideh Farsi were among dozens of Iranian film professionals participating in the protests hosted by Berlinale co-directors Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian. Protesters with signs demanded freedom for female Iranian journalists Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi who are behind bars, accused of “conspiring against national security” for being the first to report on Mahsa Amini’s death, and for the release of dissident Iranian hip hop artist Toomaj Salehi who has been accused of spreading propaganda and could face the death penalty.

Kristen Stewart joined Iranian filmmakers in a demonstration showing solidarity for Iran’s Women Life Freedom protests on the red carpet of the Berlin Film Festival on Saturday.

Celebrities were out and about this week on red carpets, TV talk show sets and on the streets of Los Angeles and New York. Alec Baldwin was seen strolling down the streets of Brooklyn after picking up his morning coffee on Wednesday.  The actor's outing came after it was reported that Dave Halls, the assistant director of his movie "Rust," may testify against him in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed are facing charges of involuntary manslaughter.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Karen Gillan, Marton Csokas, Harry Greenwood and Thomas M Wright join the cast of book-to-film crime drama film “Sleeping Dogs,” which shoots in Australia from next month. They join the previously announced Russell Crowe in the cast. The film is a book-to-film adaptation of E.O. Chirovici’s critically acclaimed novel, “The Book of Mirrors,” with a screenplay by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage (“Assassins Creed,” “Exodus: Gods and Kings”). The film also marks Cooper’s feature directorial debut. In the wake of a cutting-edge Alzheimer’s treatment, Crowe’s character, a former homicide detective, is tasked with re-examining a brutal murder case from his past – the grisly murder of a college professor (Csokas). Fighting to regain his memory, the detective enlists his former partner to help him revive the investigation. They encounter a magnetic and mysterious woman (Gillan), a tangle of contradictions and secrets and a horrific reality that changes the detective’s world view in the blink of an eye.

Hello and welcome back to your weekly International Insider. Berlin’s back and with most of our team in the German capital, it’s Jesse Whittock here bringing you the latest from the worlds of TV and film.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The intersection between Black Lives Matter and a COVID-like pandemic plus a standout performance from non-professional actor Mwajemi Hussein is sure to make “The Survival of Kindness” one of Berlin’s most talked-about films. The film is deliberately obscure – the little dialog that is heard involves each performer speaking in a language of their own invention with the meaning known only to that actor and the film’s director, Australia’s Rolf de Heer. And it is minimalist. Character names are purely functional. Location filming was done with a crew of just nine people who walked extensively across Tasmania and the deserts of South Australia and cooked for each other between set-ups.

Kristen Stewart glams it up for the opening ceremony of the 73rd Annual Berlinale International Film Festival at the Berlinale Palast on Thursday (February 16) in Berlin, Germany.