Wong Kar Wai named Berlin Film Fest jury president

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Berlin Film Festival has rounded out the panel of judges who will hand out Golden and Silver Bears next month, Deadline said.

Wong Kar Wai is jury president this year and his The Grandmaster officially opens the festival out of competition on February 7. Joining him on the jury are actor/director Tim Robbins whose Dead Man Walking was a Berlin contender in 1996; Danish director Susanne Bier; German director Andreas Dresen, a Silver Bear winner for Grill Point in 2002; American director and cinematographer Ellen Kuras; Iranian-born director and artist Shirin Neshat and Greek director and producer Athina Rachel Tsangari.

Among the titles vying for prizes in Berlin are Jafar Panahi’s Closed Curtain, Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects, David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche and Bruno Dumont’s Camille Claudel 1915. Coincidentally, Dumont also had a film in the running in Cannes in 2006 when Wong was jury president there, and that picture, Flandres, won the Grand Prize that year. The Berlin fest runs from February 7-17.