62nd Berlinale: Berlin International Film Festival.

The Berlin International Film Festival BERLINALE is presenting this year a programme full of excitement, banglanews24.com reported. With its multifaceted program and glamorous stars The International Berlin Film Festival has been consistently drawing bigger and bigger crowds year after year. Since its inauguration back in 1951 the Berlinale has managed to establish itself as one of the film's most premiere events and accomplish its aim of bringing the art of film and the film industry closer together.

The 11 day-long Film Festival is going to attract over 800,000 viewers, 4,300 journalists and some 12,500 film rights buyers, said organizers. This year a total of 23 films will be showing in the main Competition programme. The international film industry and local audiences will be attending over 2000 films at various screenings. Capacity audiences at screenings across all sections of the festival - Competition, Panorama, Forum, Kinderfilmfest, Perspektive Deutsches Kino, Retrospective and the film market series.

For the 62nd time the Berlinale is opening today, February 9, 2012, with the world premiere of Benoît Jacquot’s film Les adieux à la Reine. The director will be attending the gala with actors Diane Kruger, Léa Seydoux, Virginie Ledoyen, Xavier Beauvois and Noémie Lvovsky. Minister of State and Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs Bernd Neumann and Berlin’s Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit will open the Festival together with Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick and Jury President Mike Leigh.

The event will be broadcast live on television by ZDF/3sat. Music for the gala will be provided by the duo Boy; Anke Engelke will host the evening.A number of prominent German politicians have also announced they will be coming. They include President of the Berlin House of Representatives Walter Momper, Minister President of Brandenburg Matthias Platzeck, Federal Minister for Health Daniel Bahr, and Bundestag members Katrin Göring-Eckart, Monika Grütters, Claudia Roth and Brigitte Zypries, as well as Hamburg’s Senator Barbara Kisseler.The 62nd Berlin International Film Festival will close on February 19, 2012. The Award Ceremony will be held on February 18, 2012.

18 films will be vying for the Golden and Silver Bears in the Berlinale Palast. A total of 23 films will be showing in the Competition programme. There will also be two special screenings in the Berlinale Palast. Bai lu yuan (White Deer Plain) People’s Republic of China by Wang Quan'an with Zhang Fengyi, Zhang Yuqi, Wu Gang World premiere.The festival shows new and extraordinary productions under the auspices of the Berlinale Special and the Berlinale Special Gala. Their function is to honour great cinema personalities by showing their films and to immerse audiences in cinematic history by screening film classics. Films which deserve special attention due to current events can also be shown as part of the Berlinale Special. [ Photo: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry - Berlinale Special USA 2012, DIRECTOR: Alison Klayman]

The Berlinale is expanding its portfolio with an additional initiative and extending a four-month invitation to six filmmakers and their new projects to the creative metropolis of Berlin in autumn 2012. The new international fellowship programme, Berlinale Residency, will help filmmakers to complete their scripts successfully, as well as to develop the audience potential of the films together with their producers in a “Script to Market” seminar. Working in close contact with individually selected mentors from the Nipkow Programm and international market experts, the filmmakers can take a decisive step toward placing their next film project on the way to a successful theatrical release.

Directors who have already celebrated a feature film success at a renowned international film festival can apply for the four-month Berlinale Residency.“The Berlinale Residency is a logical progression of the previous Berlinale initiatives,” explains Festival Director Dieter Kosslick. “The fellowship serves as a follow-up project for filmmakers who already had a feature in the official programme of the festival, who were selected with projects in the Berlinale Co-Production Market or Berlinale Talent Campus, or who were supported through the World Cinema Fund. However, we are also looking forward to receiving other filmmakers from around the world, whom the programme will entice to Berlin.”

President of the international jury:The most important awards at the Berlinale are the Golden Bear and the Silver Bears. They are presented by the International Jury to films in the Competition and belong to the most renowned awards in the international film industry. British film director Mike Leigh will be the Jury President of the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival."What an honour!” said Mike Leigh, regarding his appointment as this year's president of the International Jury, adding that he had only fond memories of the Berlinale. “Berlin is truly a people's festival, and I love it. It was wonderful in the old days before the wall came down, and it has lost none of its exhilarating charm. The warm, passionate celebration of world cinema in the freezing depths of mid-winter: pure delight!”Other Jury members are: Dutch photographer, designer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn, Iranian director and screenwriter Asghar Farhadi, French-British actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal, French director and screenwriter François Ozon, Algerian writer Boualem Sansal and Barbara Sukowa is a prize-winning German film and theatre actress.

Shah Rukh Khan and Angelina Jolie to warm up Berlin winterBerlinale provides comprehensive information to the fans of the Indian star Shah Rukh Khan, who is expected to attend the premiere of his latest film Don – The King Is Back by Farhan Akhtar at the upcoming Berlinale. Shah Rukh Khan is expected to attend the premiere at the Friedrichstadt-Palast on February 11. Shah Rukh Khan will also hold a press conference.

In The Land Of Blood And Honey: Anjelina Jolie is one of the most desirable and beautiful women and the highest paid actress on the Earth, apart from being an Oscar and Golden Globe winner, and the companion of Brad Pitt, the hunky and iconic Hollywood star. She has now turned a film director. Angelina Jolie will present her directorial debut In The Land Of Blood And Honey in the Berlinale Special programme. Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut tells a story that puts a human face on the Balkan war. The plot centres on a struggle for survival, and a conflict on a battlefield where it is no longer possible to distinguish between repression and desire, strategy and feelings.