A sweeping Chinese epic, White Deer Plain, will round out the list of 18 films vying for gold at the 62nd Berlin film festival, organisers said.
Festival chief Dieter Kosslick told reporters the movie by 2007 Berlin Golden Bear winner Wang Quan’an would go up against competitors from the United States, Europe, Africa and the rest of Asia during the February 9-19 event.
White Deer Plain (Bai lu yuan), which will have its world premiere at the Berlinale, as the event is known, is based on “one of the most controversial novels in modern Chinese literature”, Mr Kosslick said.
Chen Zhongshi’s prize-winning bestseller depicts the hard lives of several generations of families and the impact of the radical upheaval gripping the Chinese countryside over half a century before the rise of communism.
Mr Wang captured the Berlinale’s top prize in 2007 for Tuya’s Marriage, an unconventional love story about a herdswoman and her two husbands set against the rural exodus in contemporary China.
Other international productions in competition include Filipino art house star Brillante Mendoza’s Captive starring French screen icon Isabelle Huppert as an aid worker kidnapped by Islamist extremist group Abu Sayyaf.
US actor and film-maker Billy Bob Thornton, who won a screenwriting Oscar for his own first outing as a feature film director with 1996’s Sling Blade, will premiere the Vietnam War-era drama Jayne Mansfield’s Car. Other entries in the main showcase include British drama Bel Ami based on a Guy de Maupassant novel and starring Robert Pattinson.Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Christina Ricci co-star in the picture, which will appear out of competition.
The Berlinale, which ranks among the top three European film festivals, will open with a drama set in the run-up to the French Revolution, Farewell My Queen, with German-born Hollywood star Diane Kruger as Marie Antoinette.
British director Mike Leigh will chair the jury while two-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep is to accept an honorary Golden Bear.
Main line-up
Barbara, Christian Petzold, Germany
Caesar Must Die (Cesare deve morire), Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Italy
Captive, Brillante Mendoza, France/Philippines/Germany/Britain
Childish Games (Dictado), Antonio Chavarrias, Spain
Coming Home (A moi seule), Frederic Videau, France
Farewell My Queen (Les adieux à la Reine), Benoit Jacquot, France/Spain (opening film)
Home For The Weekend, Hans-Christian Schmid, Germany
Jayne Mansfield’s Car, Billy Bob Thornton, Russia/US
Just The Wind (Csak a szel), Bence Fliegauf, Hungary/Germany/France
Mercy (Gnade), Matthias Glasner, Germany/Norway
Meteora, Spiros Stathoulopoulos, Germany/Greece
Postcards From The Zoo (Kebun binatang), Edwin, Indonesia/Germany/Hong Kong/China
A Royal Affair (En Kongelig Affaere), Nikolaj Arcel, Denmark/Czech Republic/Germany/Sweden
Sister (L’enfant d’en haut), Ursula Meier, Switzerland/France
Tabu, Miguel Gomes, Portugal/Germany/Brazil/France
Tey (Aujourd’hui), Alain Gomis, France/Senegal
War Witch (Rebelle), Kim Nguyen, Canada
White Deer Plain (Bai lu yuan), Wang Quan’an, China
Showing out-of-competition
Bel Ami, Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod, Britain
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Stephen Daldry, US
The Flowers of War (Jin ling Shi San Chai), Zhang Yimou, China
Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, Hark Tsui, Hong Kong/China
Shadow Dancer, James Marsh, Britain/Ireland
Special screenings
Haywire, Steven Soderbergh, US
The Iron Lady, Phyllida Lloyd, Britain