The Berlin International Film Festival is opening Thursday with a new movie from French director Francois Ozon and a pared-down format designed to bring audiences back but reduce COVID-19 infection risks.
The first of the year's major European film festivals last took place in its regular format in 2020, just before the pandemic hit. Last year, it was split in two — with a largely online version held in March and an event with screenings for the public in June.
This time, the "Berlinale" is returning to something a bit more like normal, although the omicron variant is still pushing coronavirus infection rates to new daily records in Germany, and numerous restrictions remain in place.
"We have developed a very reduced format, in consultation with health authorities here in Berlin," the festival's executive director, Mariette Rissenbeek, told Deutschlandfunk radio. The festival's main business has been reduced to seven days, with four days at the end reserved for repeat public screenings.
Cinemas will only be half-filled, and movie-goers will be required to show proof of vaccination or recent recovery from COVID-19, as well as a booster shot or a negative test. And they will have to come to screenings with masks.
The festival is opening with a world premiere of Ozon's "Peter von Kant," the first of 18 films competing for the event's top Golden Bear award. A seven-member international jury led by American filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan plans to announce the winners of that and other prizes on Feb. 16.
German government spokesman Wolfgang Buechner said last week that the festival going ahead despite the pandemic is "a courageous step" and a signal to the cultural sector that "we won't let corona get us down."
John Ashton, “Beverly Hills Cop” actor, dies at 76
John Ashton, the veteran character actor who memorably played the gruff but lovable police detective John Taggart in the "Beverly Hills Cop" films, has died. He was 76.
Ashton died Thursday in Fort Collins, Colorado, his family announced in a statement released by Ashton's manager, Alan Somers, on Sunday. No cause of death was immediately available.
In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Ashton was a regular face across TV series and films, including "Midnight Run," "Little Big League" and "Gone Baby Gone."
But in the "Beverly Hills Cop" films, Ashton played an essential part of an indelible trio. Though Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley, a Detroit detective following a case in Los Angeles, was the lead, the two local detectives โ Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Ashton's Taggart โ were Axel's sometimes reluctant, sometimes eager collaborators.
Of the three, Taggart โ "Sarge" to Billy โ was the more fearful, by-the-book detective. But he would regularly be coaxed into Axel's plans. Ashton co-starred in the first two films, beginning with the 1984 original, and returned for the the Netflix reboot, "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F," released earlier this year.
Ashton played a more unscrupulous character in Martin Brest's 1988 buddy comedy "Midnight Run." He was the rival bounty hunter also pursuing Charles Grodin's wanted accountant in "The Duke" while he's in the custody of Robert De Niro's Jack Walsh.
Speaking in July to Collider, Ashton recalled auditioning with De Niro.
"Bobby started handing me these matches, and I went to grab the matches, and he threw them on the floor and stared at me," said Ashton. "I looked at the matches, and I looked up, and I said, 'Fโ- you,' and he said, 'Fโ- you, too.' I said,... Read More