Martial arts epic “The Grandmaster” kicked off the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday, introducing an international audience to Yip Man, the man who mentored Bruce Lee and brought kung fu to the masses.
The movie by Wong Kar-Wai is running out of competition because the director also heads this year’s jury.
Shanghai-born Wong and his fellow jurors — among them American actor-director Tim Robbins — will have to choose from 19 movies competing for prizes at the 63rd Berlinale.
These include the Steven Soderbergh thriller “Side Effects” with Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Gus Van Sant’s film “Promised Land” about the shale gas industry starring Matt Damon.
Juliette Binoche portrays a troubled French sculptor in “Camille Claudel 1915,” while “Gold” tells a tale of German immigrants seeking their luck in late 19th-century North America.
Competing also are romantic thriller “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman” with Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood, and “Closed Curtain” by Iranian film maker Jafar Panahi, who was barred from leaving Iran to attend the festival.
The winner of one award has already been announced. French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann will be honored for his life’s work. Lanzmann’s nine-and-a-half hour documentary “Shoah” about the horrors of the genocide of European Jews was screened at the festival in 1986.
In total more than 400 films will be shown at the Feb. 7-17 event known for its focus on social and political works.
Jury president Wong said ahead of the festival that Berlin was about the “experience of a true pleasure of sharing ideas” in the cinema.
Speaking Thursday about his own work, Wong told reporters that the biggest challenge while making “The Grandmaster” was the fact that he doesn’t practice martial arts himself.
Wong said he was nevertheless drawn to the figure of Yip Man, Bruce Lee’s mentor, because of his fortitude in the face of a lifetime of hardship, beginning with his childhood in Imperial China through the revolutionary years and ending in Hong Kong under British colonial rule.
“His life basically is like the modern history of the early days of our republic,” said Wong. “During all these periods you can see how a martial artist stands up for his principles and his honor in front of all this hardship”
The international cut of “The Grandmaster” premiering in Berlin has been shortened from the version released in China last year. The film stars Tony Leung (“In the Mood for Love”) and Zhang Ziyi, best known internationally for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
Directing and Editing “Conclave”; Insights From Edward Berger and Nick Emerson
It’s been a bruising election year but this time we’re referring to a ballot box struggle that’s more adult than the one you’d typically first think of in 2024. Rather, on the industry awards front, the election being cited is that of the Pope which takes front and center stage in director Edward Berger’s Conclave (Focus Features), based on the 2016 novel of the same title by Robert Harris. Adapted by screenwriter Peter Straugham, Conclave stars Ralph Fiennes as the cardinal leading the conclave that has convened to select the next Pope. While part political thriller, full of backstabbing and behind-closed-door machinations, Conclave also registers as a thoughtful adult drama dealing with themes such as a crisis of faith, weighing the greater good, and engaging in a struggle that’s as much about spirituality as the attainment of power.
Conclave is Berger’s first feature after his heralded All Quiet on the Western Front, winner of four Oscars in 2023, including for Best International Feature Film. And while Conclave would on the surface seem to be quite a departure from that World War I drama, there’s a shared bond of humanity which courses through both films.
For Berger, the heightened awareness of humanity hit home for him by virtue of where he was--in Rome, primarily at the famed Cinecittà studio--to shoot Conclave, sans any involvement from the Vatican. He recalled waking up in Rome to “soak up” the city. While having his morning espresso, Berger recollected looking out a window and seeing a priest walking about with a cigarette in his mouth, a nun having a cup of coffee, an archbishop carrying a briefcase. It dawned on Berger that these were just people going to... Read More