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A financial crisis thriller starring Kevin Spacey and Demi Moore and a French 3D animated feature will vie for the top prizes at next month's Berlin Film Festival.
The 61st edition of the festival, running from Feb. 10 to 20, is scheduled to showcase 22 films in its main program, including 16 set to be in the running for the festival's coveted Golden and Silver Bear prizes, organizers said in a statement announcing the complete list of competitors.
Among new entries announced were "Margin Call," a feature film debut by J.C. Chandor starring Spacey, Moore, Jeremy Irons and Paul Bettany and set at an investment bank at the start of the global financial turmoil.
U.S. director Joshua Marston, whose drug-mule drama "Maria Full of Grace" picked up two prizes at the 2004 Berlinale, as the event is known, will screen "The Forgiveness of Blood," a saga about an Albanian family locked in a blood feud.
France's Michel Ocelot will unveil "Tales of the Night," a fairy tale in 3D based on his silhouette animation television special, one of three pictures at the festival that will burst through the third dimension.
Iranian film-maker Asghar Farhadi, who won a best director prize for his haunting drama "About Elly" at the 2009 festival, will be back this year with "Nader and Simin, a Separation," a surprising film about an estranged couple reunited by a surprise event.
Farhadi faced a production ban by Iranian authorities while making the film for comments in support of jailed director Jafar Panahi, whom the festival is set to honor this year. The ban was later lifted.
"We invited Jafar Panahi to be on the International Jury in 2011. But then in December, 2010 he was sentenced to six years imprisonment and banned from film-making for the next 20 years," festival director Dieter Kosslick said in a statement.
"We are going to use every opportunity to protest against this drastic verdict."
The event, one of the world's top film festivals, will open with a remake of the classic Western "True Grit" by Oscar-winning brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. Italian-American actress Isabella Rossellini will chair the prize jury.
The 61st edition of the festival, running from Feb. 10 to 20, is scheduled to showcase 22 films in its main program, including 16 set to be in the running for the festival's coveted Golden and Silver Bear prizes, organizers said in a statement announcing the complete list of competitors.
Among new entries announced were "Margin Call," a feature film debut by J.C. Chandor starring Spacey, Moore, Jeremy Irons and Paul Bettany and set at an investment bank at the start of the global financial turmoil.
U.S. director Joshua Marston, whose drug-mule drama "Maria Full of Grace" picked up two prizes at the 2004 Berlinale, as the event is known, will screen "The Forgiveness of Blood," a saga about an Albanian family locked in a blood feud.
France's Michel Ocelot will unveil "Tales of the Night," a fairy tale in 3D based on his silhouette animation television special, one of three pictures at the festival that will burst through the third dimension.
Iranian film-maker Asghar Farhadi, who won a best director prize for his haunting drama "About Elly" at the 2009 festival, will be back this year with "Nader and Simin, a Separation," a surprising film about an estranged couple reunited by a surprise event.
Farhadi faced a production ban by Iranian authorities while making the film for comments in support of jailed director Jafar Panahi, whom the festival is set to honor this year. The ban was later lifted.
"We invited Jafar Panahi to be on the International Jury in 2011. But then in December, 2010 he was sentenced to six years imprisonment and banned from film-making for the next 20 years," festival director Dieter Kosslick said in a statement.
"We are going to use every opportunity to protest against this drastic verdict."
The event, one of the world's top film festivals, will open with a remake of the classic Western "True Grit" by Oscar-winning brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. Italian-American actress Isabella Rossellini will chair the prize jury.
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