A debut for Kazakhstan

This year, the first Kazakh film (“Harmony Lessons”) was in competition at the Berlinale.

With “Harmony Lessons” for the first time ran a competition at the Berlin film from Kazakhstan, the debut of young director Emir Baigazin. In sophisticated imagery, that makes conscious a cool distance from the events, he tells of an idiosyncratic, obsessive pupil who is bullied by his classmates. Chief action is increasingly brutalized and refers to the state of a society that has no values no morals.

The films from the East were almost with a documentary accuracy, directness of the narrative and visual experimentation. Most American movies like “Promised Land” by Gus Van Sant and “Side Effects” of Steven Soderbergh were at best average conventional. The participation of a significant work such as “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman” in the competition can be explained on the red carpet at all, only with the presence of the main character, the young star Shia LaBeouf.

Here, the Berlinale, which is repeatedly demanded star presence from Boulevard had, one on an unsustainable compromise. The honor of American cinema saved the indie director David Gordon Green with the wonderfully melancholy, philosophical comedy “Prince Avalanche” with Emile Hirsch and Paul Rudd, a remake of an Icelandic film. Two workers renew the road markings in a devastated forest fire area, they talk about God, the world and the love that solve any of the mysteries of life, but perhaps bring us the nature of loneliness a little closer, not to be confused here with helplessness.

Green, who takes a Silver Bear for Best Director with home, remembered with emotion at its very first festival – 13 years ago with his indie gem “George Washington”, at the Berlinale. Thus, a circle has closed for him. Gorgeous Paulina Garcia as “Gloria”
Her big moment: Paulina Garcia gets the Silver Bear by Andreas Dresen

A favorite of the festival, the gorgeous Chilean actress Paulina Garcia, was awarded the Silver Bear for her portrayal of “Gloria” about a woman in her late 50, which will not put up with her loneliness and still goes in search of love. Inspired by Andreas Dresen and from the hand of this German director and jury member, Garcia received the bear.

The Berlinale is again a window to Eastern Europe. With notable productions in competition from Russia, Poland, Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kazakhstan, they extended the cinematic horizon, pointed strongly to great talents and put a clear sign. These films received the attention it deserves. The other rows of the festival presented impressive work from the East, about the forum the grand debut of director duo Ekvtimishvili / Great “In Bloom” from Georgia, which leads to the time of 1992, when the national conflicts not yet broken open, the voltages but were already noticeable. For the Festival of East European Cinema in Cottbus, which cares for many years intensively to these countries, Berlinale appears as a late confirmation and satisfaction. Multi-layered drama from Romania

“Child’s Pose”

The story of a symbiotic mother-son relationship has been awarded the Golden Bear.

In rare harmony with the intentions of the festival, the jury reached under Wong KarWai to the submission and award winning films. The main prize at the Berlinale, the Golden Bear, as expected, went to the Romanians Calin Peter Netzer for “Child’s Pose“. , the muse of the new, acclaimed around the world Romanian cinema, the great Luminita Gheorghiu plays a possessive mother from the upper classes, whose adult son has caused a fatal accident. The multi-layered drama also portrays an almost incestuous, relationship with the grip on son, who cannot be released from the grip.Dramatic, but true: “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker”

The jury praised the performance of Mujic Nazif, who plays his own life in the Bosnian competition entry.
The second big winner at the Berlinale piping reflects social basis of a dramatic, in this case a true story. In “An Episode in the Life of an Iron picker” of the Bosnian Oscar winner Danis Tanovic (“No Man’s Land”) plays us the real Roma family Mujic.

The baby in the womb of the mother had died; the woman was suffering from severe pain. Although there was a danger to life, it was rejected in all hospitals, because it was not insured. We share their experience as spectators of the ubiquitous, outrageous racism. Moreover, the amazing film shows the hard life of the family, the daily struggle for survival.

The father Mujic Nazif, who was as if any other for the first time on camera, was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actor, director Danis Tanovic was awarded the Grand Jury Prize.

Director Roman Polanski competes in Cannes with “Venus in Fur” for the Golden Palm. It is the impressive competition program of the 66th International Film Festival of Cannes.That must be a festival once can afford the new film by Sofia Coppola. The thriller “The Bling Ring” is in Cannes but he just opened the section “Uncertain regard”. It is not so surprising.

International Film Festival of Cannes – an impressive competition program

Go to the 66th International Film Festival on 15 Mai with Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” with Leonardo Di Caprio, who is still out of competition. For the Palme d’then apply, for example, Roman Polanski with “Venus in Fur” and François Ozon with “Jeune et Jolie” – a daughter who works as a hooker.

In addition, the Coen Brothers get a positive assessment by jury president Steven Spielberg, with their folk music celebration from the Greenwich Village – “Inside Llewyn Davis” with Justin Timberlake.

Three other American filmmakers also are in the race: Alexander Payne with “Nebraska” James Gray with the Twenties drama “The Immigrant” with Marion Cotillard and Joaquin Phoenix, and Steven Soderbergh with another recent film that really turned for television Liberace biography “Behind the Candelabra” – as Michael Douglas and Matt Damon play a gay couple.

Denmark’s Nicholas Winding Refn (“Drive”) is “Only God Forgives” in front, again with Ryan Gosling, this time in the role of an English gangster, a French production. Also present are two German co-productions: “Heli” of Amat Escalante and “Michael Kohlhaas” by Arnaud Despallieres.

Also: “La Vie d’Adele” by Abdellatif Kechiche, “A Touch of Sin” by Jia Zhangke and “The Past”, the new film by Asghar Farhadi, won with “Nader and Simin” – two years ago the Berlin Film Festival. Farhadi has made a film for the first time outside of Iran, in France, with Berenice Bejo (“The Artist”) in the lead role.A non-competitive run in this year – Guillaume Canets “Blood Ties” starring Clive Owen and Mila Kunis and “All is Lost”, starring Robert Redford, of J C Chandor (“Margin Call”).