11/01/2016 - Europe makes a grand entrance with its candidates for the Bears, representing both north and south

After the unveiling, just before Christmas, of the five first contenders for the Golden Bear of the 66th Berlin Film Festival (11-21 February 2016), a first batch dominated by American films (read article), it’s Europe, from Portugal to Sweden via Bosnia, that dominates the second batch, comprising nine films, that the organisers announced this afternoon.

Of the newly announced films, several stand out, such as that of Bosnian Belgian national Danis Tanovic, who won an Oscar for No Man's Land [+see also:
trailer
film profile], received two awards at Berlin three years ago for the magnificent An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Danis Tanović
film profile], and has this time joined forces with seasoned French actor Jacques Weber in Death in Sarajevo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Danis Tanovic
film profile]. French director André Téchiné also features in the selection, with Being 17 [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: André Téchiné
interview: Kacey Mottet Klein
film profile] (read news), a film with a Rimbaldian title that will bring the young face of Swiss actor Kacey Mottet Klein back to Berlin (the hero of Sister [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kacey Mottet Klein
interview: Ursula Meier
film profile] by Ursula Meier, Silver Bear/Special Prize at Berlin in 2012). He has also been chosen as one of this year’s Shooting Stars of the EFP-European Film Promotion, whom Cineuropa will be publishing video interviews with over the course of the Festival as it does every year.

Another French filmmaker to have been chosen is Mia Hansen-Løve who, at the tender age of 35, is already on her fifth feature film, Things to Come [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Mia Hansen-Løve
film profile] (starring the fabulous Isabelle Huppert - read news), and will be joined by another filmmaker with a Scandinavian name, Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, a founder of the Dogme 95 filmmaking movement recently acclaimed for his heart-wrenching film The Hunt [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Vinterberg
interview: Thomas Vinterberg
film profile] (which won the award for Best Actor at Cannes in 2012 for Mads Mikkelsen’s powerful performance), who has also been selected with his film The Commune [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Vinterberg
film profile] (read news). Joining these top filmmakers is Italian-American Cinéma du Réel champion Gianfranco Rosi, who became the first winner of the Golden Lion at Venice in 2013 for a documentary feature (Sacro GRA [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile]), with Fire at Sea [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile] (read news), and Polish director Tomasz Wasilewski (with United States of Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tomasz Wasilewski
film profile]), Portuguese filmmaker Ivo M. Ferreira (with Letters from War [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Ivo M Ferreira
film profile]), Iranian director Mani Haghighi and the "father of new Filipino cinema", Lav Diaz.

Competition (new films selected)

The Commune [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Vinterberg
film profile] - Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark/Sweden/the Netherlands)
Death in Sarajevo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Danis Tanovic
film profile] - Danis Tanović (France/Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Being 17 [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: André Téchiné
interview: Kacey Mottet Klein
film profile] - André Téchiné (France)
Fire at Sea [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile] - Gianfranco Rosi (Italy/France)
Things to Come [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Mia Hansen-Løve
film profile] - Mia Hansen-Løve (France/Germany)
United States of Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tomasz Wasilewski
film profile] - Tomasz Wasilewski (Poland/Sweden)
Letters from War [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Ivo M Ferreira
film profile] - Ivo M. Ferreira (Portugal)
A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery - Lav Diaz (Philippines/Singapore)
A Dragon Arrives! - Mani Haghighi (Iran) 

The remaining films chosen to compete at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival will be announced very soon.

(Translated from French)