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BERLINALE 2018 Opening

Wes Anderson to open the Berlinale again with Isle of Dogs

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- Four years after The Grand Budapest Hotel was screened as the gathering’s opening film, the US filmmaker is back to raise the curtain on its 68th edition, this time with an animated movie

Wes Anderson to open the Berlinale again with Isle of Dogs
Isle of Dogs by Wes Anderson

By this time four years ago, the organisers of the Berlin Film Festival had already chosen to kick off festivities by immersing the audience in the colourful and hectic universe of Wes Anderson, with The Grand Budapest Hotel [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile
]
. For the 68th edition of the great German gathering (15-25 February 2018), they have decided to once again entrust the opening of the international competition to the mischievous US filmmaker, with a movie that is not content to simply borrow from cartoons: Isle of Dogs [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, which will be world-premiered at the event, will even be the very first animated film ever presented as an opening title at Berlin. 

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Anderson has already been invited to the competition three times: with The Royal Tenenbaums (2002), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2005) and, as mentioned above, The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), which took home the Silver Bear-Grand Jury Prize. “I’m most delighted that Wes Anderson will kick off the Berlinale Competition again,” remarked the director of the event, Dieter Kosslick. “Isle of Dogs [is]... a film that will capture audiences’ hearts with its Wes Anderson charm."

Anderson has already explored the animated genre before with Fantastic Mr. Fox [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile
]
. In his latest offering, which was made using stop motion, he tells the story of Atari Kobayashi, a 12-year-old ward to corrupt Mayor Kobayashi. When, by Executive Decree, all of the canine pets of Megasaki City are exiled to a vast rubbish dump, Atari sets off alone in a miniature Junior-Turbo Prop and flies to Trash Island in search of his bodyguard-dog, Spots. There, with the help of a pack of newly found mongrel friends, he begins an epic journey that will decide the fate and future of the entire prefecture. Some of the actors who have lent their dulcet tones to the original English-language version include Bryan CranstonEdward NortonBill MurrayScarlett JohanssonTilda SwintonKen WatanabeGreta GerwigFrances McDormandYoko Ono and Harvey Keitel.

Isle of Dogs was co-produced in Germany by Studio Babelsberg. The global distribution of the film is being handled by Fox Searchlight Pictures, in partnership with Indian Paintbrush. Its US release is slated for late March 2018, and the rest of the world will be able to enjoy it from April onwards.

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(Translated from French)

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