March 2001 - Nr. 3
Berlinale 2001
TWIG - Berlin’s 51st International Film Festival opened on Wednesday (February 7) with the world premier of the World War II epic Enemy at the Gates. The German-U.S. coproduction ranks as one of Europe’s most ambitious films, ushering in 23 motion pictures in the running for the Berlinale’s prestigious Golden Bear awards. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud and lead actor Jude Law were both in Berlin for the film’s debut.
State Culture Minister Julian Nida-Ruemelin presided over the opening ceremony in the Berlinale Palace on Potsdamer Platz, standing in for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who was home with the flu. In a published statement, Schroeder called on festival-goers to remember the many years the Berlinale was held in a divided Berlin, where politics posed enormous challenges that affected the way the films were viewed. "A uniting Europe can make good use of the festival’s tradition of bridge building," Schroeder wrote. The chancellor also thanked long-time festival director Moritz de Hadeln, who is stepping down from his post after 22 years.
Among the films competing for top prizes at the Berlinale are Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, and Gus Van Sant’s Finding Forrester. Germany’s contender for the festival’s "Golden Bear" is the German-Greek coproduction, My Sweet Home directed by Filippos Tsitos.
Filmmakers in town for the week will be happy to learn that German cinemas brought more people to the movies in 2000 than in previous years. Berlin’s Institute for the Advancement of Film (FFA: Filmförderungsanstalt) reports that the number of moviegoers reached 152.5 million last year, or 3.5 million more than in 1999. The FFA attributes the 2.4 percent rise in attendance in part to cheaper tickets and other special offers that make a trip to the cinema more affordable, as well as to the new multiplex movie theatres opening all over the country. Germans also had a wider selection of movies to choose from in 2000, with a record total of 416 first-run films. But the FFA notes that German tastes have changed very little, as audiences continue to pass up European films for Hollywood blockbusters. Two box office hits last year were American Pie and Mission Impossible.
