New films from Stanley Tucci, Martin Provost and China’s Liu Jian complete the Berlinale’s competition lineup and will see their world premieres at the next month’s festival, Variety reports.
Only Liu’s film, the animated “Have a Nice Day,” will actually compete for the Golden Bear. “Final Portrait” (pictured), Tucci’s biopic of Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti with actor Geoffrey Rush, and “Midwife,” starring Catherine Frot and Catherine Deneuve, are part of the official competition section but will not actually vie for the main awards.
In all, the competition lineup features 24 films, all but two of which will have their world premieres at the festival and 18 of which will compete for the prestigious Golden and Silver Bears.
The festival also announced the Berlinale Special, which will once again present a selection of television series as part of the official program. It marks the third time TV programming has featured at Berlin, with screenings of the first two episodes of each series.
This year’s selected series includes TNT’s “4 Blocks” from Germany, directed by Marvin Kren; German-Danish co-production “Below The Surface,” from Kanal 5 and Discovery Network Denmark; France 2’s French-Belgian co-production “Black Spot;” ZDF’s German-Czech co-production “The Same Sky,” directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel; Amazon Prime’s “Patriot,” a U.S.-Czech co-production created by Steve Conrad; and the BBC’s “SS-GB,” starring Sam Riley and Kate Bosworth.
The Special section will also feature 13 films. New additions include gala screenings of James Gray’s “The Lost City of Z,” which will have its international premiere at Berlin, and Aisling Walsh’s “Maudie,” starring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke, which makes its European bow. The section also sees the world premieres of documentaries “Devil’s Freedom” from Mexico and Estonian-Polish-Czech co-production “The Trail: The State of Russia vs. Oleg Sentsov”; the international premiere of experimental film “the bomb”; and a retrospective screening of Abbas Kiarostami’s 1990 film “Close-Up.”
