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Julia Roberts, Scarlett Johansson due at Berlin film fest
2008-01-18
New movies starring Julia Roberts, Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival next month alongside new releases from South Korea and Iran, organisers said Friday. Roberts is expected in the German capital to present "Fireflies in the Garden", a drama about a family struck by tragedy also featuring Willem Dafoe and Emily Watson, the festival said in a statement. Johansson and Portman star in US-British co-production "The Other Boleyn Girl", an adaption of the novel of the same name about two sisters vying for the affections of King Henry VIII. French filmmaker Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind") will unveil "Be Kind Rewind" starring Jack Black as a video store owner who attempts to remake Hollywood classics for his most loyal customer, a woman suffering from dementia (Mia Farrow). All three films are screening out of competition for the 58th Berlinale's Golden and Silver Bear top prizes. Organizers said this year's 21 contenders would include "Avaze Gonjeshk-ha" (The Song of Sparrows) by Iranian director Majid Majidi about an ostrich farm employee who is fired and must seek work in the city, and "Bam gua Nat" (Night and Day), a dramatic comedy by South Korea's Hong Song-soo. US director Lance Hammer will enter "Ballast", a drama set in the Mississippi Delta, joined by "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime" (I've Loved You So Long), a French-language feature starring British actress Kristin Scott Thomas. And Finnish cinema will be represented with "Musta Jaa" (Black Ice) by Petri Kotwica, billed as a dark love story. The festival running February 7-17 will kick off with "Shine A Light", a Rolling Stones concert movie by Martin Scorsese with both the band and the director expected on the red carpet. Pictures by British director Mike Leigh and Hong Kong's Johnnie To and a Philip Roth adaptation with Penelope Cruz are among other the other competition films in the festival's main showcase. The Berlinale ranks among Europe's top three film festivals.
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