Member Profile | FocusFeatures.com
Subscribe RSSThe Years of the Berlin Film Festival
Posted February 11, 2010 to photo album "The Years of the Berlin Film Festival"
The Berlinale turns 60 this year. What a strange journey it’s been.
Slide 4: 1958 - The Festival Opens Up
The buzz of the Berlinale in 1958.
After setting a distinctly Cold War stance, the Berlinale attempted to warm relations a bit by inviting the Soviet Union to submit films. The outreach, however, was rebuffed. No Soviet film would screen at the Festival until 1974. Berlin’s new mayor Willy Brandt pushed for openness, stating, “The cinematic standards of different nations… differ from one another no less than the languages and customs of different peoples. But that can’t allow us to be narrow-minded. I trust in the cosmopolitanism of this city.” Such cosmopolitanism could be seen in the range of films that won awards that year, from Ingmar Bergman’s moving drama Wild Strawberries (which won the Golden Bear) to a Silver Bear for Best Actor to Sidney Poitier for his performance in The Defiant Ones.
The World's End
We Steal Secrets
Closed Circuit
The Deep
The Place Beyond The Pines
Greetings from Tim Buckley
Admission
Promised Land
Anna Karenina
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Brokeback Mountain
Lost in Translation
Pride & Prejudice
The Pianist
Gosford Park