Low on glitz, big on film
Masses brave bitter cold for 11 days of screenings in Berlin
BERLIN -- Cate wore goosepimples. Clint's nose looked blue.
The red carpet leading into the main cinema hall bore streaks of slush. Condensed breath hovered above shivering hordes of media photographers and TV camera crews like smoke over a battlefield. Autograph hounds dogging the grand entrance of the Berlinale Palast multiple-screen theatre clutched their blank-paged books with thick mittens.
The 57th annual Berlin International Film Festival, known as the Berlinale, got underway last week with the combination of sizzling-hot stars and bone-numbing temperatures that has made it legend in an industry that likes its creature comforts. The festival ends Sunday.
"It's [expletive] cold here," observed director-actor Clint Eastwood, disembarking from a private jet at Tempelhof airport for yesterday's screening of his "Letters from Iwo Jima," which depicts the bloody World War II battle from the Japanese perspective.
Cate Blanchett didn't outright curse the chill. But the Australian actress -- who has lead roles in two films showing at the festival, Steven Soderbergh's "The Good German" and Richard Eyre's "Notes on a Scandal" -- flinched against the blast of snow and bitter wind as she exited a news conference and greeted a throng of clamoring fans near Marlene Dietrich-Platz.
"Cate, Cate, Cate!" they cried through chattering teeth.
The Berlin event, usually ranked with Cannes and Venice as one of Europe's "big three" film fests, has drawn a bigger-than-ever crowd of actors, directors, producers, writers, critics, and fans to the German capital for 11 days of screenings, preenings, and behind-the-scenes deal-making. This year, 373 films from six continents -- culled from some 5,000 entries -- will show at 50 theatres around the city, with most of the onscreen action centered on the plush cinema halls around Potsdamer Platz.
"You've got to love films with real passion to come to Berlin in mid-February," festival director Dieter Kosslick said in an interview.
Beki Probst, head of the European Film Market, which brings producers, studio executives, distributors, marketers, national film board bureaucrats, and other money folk together during the festival , said : "This is not a resort, like Cannes. There are beautiful people here, to be sure, but they tend to be bundled up and blowing their noses."
For all the jokes, Berlin is deeply steeped in movie tradition.
In 1895, at a music/beer hall called the Winter Garden, brothers Max and Emil Skladanowsky displayed a series of very short films -- six seconds apiece, depicting "actors" moving at a herky-jerky 16 frames per second -- in what some historians consider the first moving pictures ever shown to a paying audience. It was boffo box office from the beginning, with the flickering, plotless images pulling in sellout crowds.
Berlin remains a hub of the European film industry and has served as the backdrop for countless international films.
Meanwhile, Berliners are among the most movie-mad people on the planet, famously addicted to both blockbusters and brainy, grainy art house flicks.
"For me, films are as essential to life as food and oxygen," said Karin Gruener, a 32-year-old lawyer standing in line to purchase a public ticket to Park Chan Wook's "I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK," a South Korean film that tells of love in a psychiatric hospital.
"They lift me away from my own troubles," she said. "Yet they make me better understand the troubles of other people in the world. I go to at least one film every week in my normal life. But during the Berlinale I try to see one every day. Here I have a chance to watch amazing little movies from the Czech Republic, China, Denmark -- from anywhere! -- that I might otherwise miss."
The Berlin film festival, like others in its league, openly courts Hollywood's hottest figures. But the festival is also a major venue for low-budget , low-key films that have little chance of grabbing the limelight but can at least garner a few stray rays of attention. Along with more than 3,800 journalists from around the world, the festival attracts some 19,000 movie business professionals on a hunt for fresh talent.
"Little-known, independent movies are the soul of the Berlinale," said Kosslick. "But big stars provide the wattage that makes the whole event shine."
Among those dining at Borchardt and other uber-chic restaurants in Berlin's sleek Mitte district were Robert De Niro, Jennifer Lopez, Judi Dench, Sharon Stone, and Matt Damon.
"I love this city, there is so much energy, so much going on," said Damon, star of the De Niro-directed movie "The Good Shepherd," about the early days of the CIA. "Berlin's got bustle and buzz and all sorts of things happening in the arts."
Berlin is sometimes called the Los Angeles of Europe, but that's for its urban sprawl, not its healthful climate. The city has 3.4 million inhabitants and is spread over 344 square miles. Like LA, Berlin has great heart but no real center or much in the way of noble architecture. And like LA, the city is renowned for its spiritual restlessness, rank hedonism, and sense of importance.
Berlin also loves to boast of its gritty egalitarianism. And that's a key tradition of the festival, according to film specialists.
"The Berlinale is one of the few international film festivals where screenings are open for a reasonable price to the general public," said Hartmut Bitomsky, director of the German Film and Television Academy. "Ordinary people are getting the same early look at new films as the critics and big people in the industry."
Over the duration of the festival, more than 180,000 tickets are sold to regular moviegoers at $9 to $14 a seat. " It's a unique, defining quality of the event," said Kosslick. "Normal people are sitting next to film producers and big stars."
The media hordes are paying closest attention to the 22 top feature movies competing for the prestigious "Golden Bear" award for best film (the bear has been the symbol of Berlin since medieval times). The winner will be picked Saturday by seven jurors led by screenwriter Paul Schrader ("Taxi Driver") and including actors Willem Dafoe and Gael García Bernal.
Among the American offerings are De Niro's "The Good Shepherd" and Gregory Nava's "Bordertown," which stars Jennifer Lopez as a journalist uncovering crime and corruption in Juarez, Mexico.
The Chinese film "Lost in Beijing" has generated controversy because of the communist government's efforts to suppress the movie, which tells of an impoverished young woman who descends into prostitution in order to survive in the city.
"The Year My Parents Went on Vacation," a Brazilian movie, depicts a 12-year-old boy's fascination with the World Cup soccer game during the 1970s .
"My main expectation is to sell the film, to negotiate," "Parents" producer Fabiano Gullane told the Bloomberg news agency. "If we win, it's brilliant. If we don't, never mind."
Petra Krischok of the Globe's Berlin bureau contributed to this report. For more information, go to the Berlin festival's website at www.berlinale.de. 