GERMANY: GERMAN CHANCELLOR GERHARD SCHROEDER OPENS THE 52ND BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Record ID: 392528

  • Title: GERMANY: GERMAN CHANCELLOR GERHARD SCHROEDER OPENS THE 52ND BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
  • Date: 5th February 2002
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 5, 2002) (REUTERS) WIDE SHOT OF POTSDAMER PLATZ, WHERE THE BERLINALE IS TAKING PLACE (0.05) VARIOUS SHOTS OF THE BERLINALE PALAST (0.15) SMV OF FILM FAN CARRYING A SIGN SAYING SHE IS LOOKING FOR TICKETS (0.18) VARIOUS SHOTS OF FANS QUEUING FOR A GLIMPSE OF THE STARS AT THE OPENING (0.24) VARIOUS SHOTS OF THE ARRIVAL OF THE FILM DIRECTOR DIETE
  • Embargoed: 20th February 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BERLIN, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAESCWQ8PYJN5UJZZ7ZLPQGCP68
  • Story Text: The 52th International Film Festival got off to an explosive start in Berlin as hundreds of stars from film, television and even the political field flooded the german capital.
    The Berlin Film Festival, one of the worlds major movie showcases, got off to an explosive start on Wednesday with a European film that deals sympathetically with a woman who plants a bomb in a high rise building.
    Heaven, an Italian-German production directed by German Tom Tykwer, was made before last Septembers attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon put the world on alert.
    Starring Australian actress Cate Blanchett, it was chosen to open the Berlinale, which was hosting a gala with 2,500 guests including Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Wednesday evening.
    Many guests arrived in traditional carnival costume, carnival starting in Germany this week.
    Even today, almost five months after September 11, no one has forgotten the terrible scenes from Washington and New York, worse than could have been conceived in any disaster movie, Schroeder said in a brief address.
    Such an event helped convey the importance of cinema to promote tolerance and acceptance of diversity, Schroeder said according to a text of his statement.
    Blanchett, in an interview with Reuters, said the events of September 11 might have changed nuances of Heaven had the film not been finished before. But she added that filmmakers should not avoid freely portraying bombs and their perpetrators due to a feeling of sensitivity.
    Films had addressed World War Two, the Vietnam War and the Gulf War because culture could help people understand the real world, Blanchett said.
    If we now start making films where no one can put a bomb in a building its ridiculous, because culture enables us to understand what goes on in reality.
    Heaven is not about terrorism, however. It is a melancholy love story with spiritual undertones that deals with guilt and redemption. It won only a smattering of applause from about 1,000 journalists who saw a press screening on Wednesday.
    Set in the Italian city of Turin, Blanchett plays Philippa, an English teacher who tries to kill a heroin dealer because he has been selling drugs to schoolchildren.
    She plants a bomb in his office whichup killing four innocent people while the drug dealer escapes unhurt.
    Philippa does not resist arrest and a young police interpreter, Filippo, played by Italian actor Giovanni Ribisi, falls in love with her during her interrogation.
    He helps her escape and kill the drug dealer, and they wander around Tuscany, distancing themselves from reality and becoming so similar in appearance they seem to fuse into one.
    Tykwer, who came to prominence with the 1998 box office success Run Lola Run, contrasts the stark angles of Turin with the soft Tuscan countryside in his camera work.
    The Berlinale is one of the top three festivals in Europe, ranking behind Cannes and alongside Venice. Blanchett apart, stars attending include Russell Crowe and Catherine Deneuve.
    The organisers predict some 420,000 people will have flocked to see the 400 films being screened by the time the 12-day festival ends.
    Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick, who has spent 20 years promoting German films, has not been bashful about giving the festival a distinctly German flavour this year.
    Four of the 23 films competing for Golden Bear awards are German, including Heaven. Other contenders are The Shipping News, featuring Kevin Spacey, The Royal Tenenbaums, for which Gene Hackman has received widespread praise, and Iris, starring Judi Dench as the late British writer Iris Murdoch.
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