Berlin Film Festival

The Berlin Film Festival opened Thursday with a story of love and loss starring Sigourney Weaver as an autistic woman whose daughter dies in a car crash and Alan Rickman as the man who helps her cope. With snow falling on the German capital, the bittersweet British-Canadian co-production "Snow Cake" kicked off the 56th annual "Berlinale," regarded as one of the top three European festivals alongside Cannes and Venice.

Selections for this year's Berlin International Film Festival range from Iran to Argentina and include new movies from U.S. veterans Sidney Lumet and Robert Altman. This year's Berlinale, the 56th, runs from Feb. 9 to 19. It will offer 29 world premieres. The films are overall "very political, very close to reality ... directed toward people's problems, with less fantasy," festival director Dieter Kosslick said Monday.

Germany is a bewildering closet of history. Images that seared the last century still smolder. Art and politics are often held against the prism of the Nazi era. But the grip of the past is slackening on a new generation of filmmakers increasingly intent on drawing narratives from their nation's current troubles. Unemployment, drugs, immigration and the failure of German reunification after the collapse of communism are prevalent themes in contemporary documentary and feature films.

Playwright Arthur Miller's daughter Rebecca braved the press Tuesday when she appeared at the Berlin Film Festival to promote her new film, five days after her father's death. She was there for the European premiere of "The Ballad of Jack and Rose," a poignant tale of a man's relationship with his daughter, written and directed by Rebecca Miller. The father is played by her husband, Daniel Day-Lewis.

Germany's long-languishing film industry is enjoying a powerful revival as audiences tire of Hollywood and its special effects, Culture Minister Christina Weiss says. As the 55th Berlin Film Festival got underway this week, Weiss said that cinema-goers in Germany and across Europe were rediscovering European films because they touch nerves with stories closer to home.

A newly reconstructed version of the 1925 Soviet silent classic "Battleship Potemkin," featuring shots cut from the original, will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February. The film now includes the original's Russian graphics and the opening words of revolutionary Leon Trotsky, which were cut in "one of the most spectacular cases of censorship in the 1920s," a festival statement said Wednesday. No complete print of the original film survived, it said.

Midway through "Untold Scandal," an unabashedly sexy telling of "Dangerous Liaisons" set in 18th century Korea that I watched at the recent Berlin International Film Festival, the couple seated in front of me left the theater. They were young, which is perhaps why I had forgiven their distracted snuggling -- movies have always been places for discreet intimacy. But 20 minutes after they left, the young couple came back.

For the second year in a row, the Berlin Film Festival recognized more than one actress for leading performance, granting Silver Bears to both Charlize Theron, for her role in "Monster," and Catalina Sandino Moreno, for "Maria, llena eres de gracia" (Maria Full of Grace). Theron, who is also up for an Oscar, went through a remarkable transformation in the film, putting on 30 pounds and wearing false teeth to portray Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos.

Flickering amid the sharp-edged steel and glass of this city's new architecture, the Berlin International Film Festival has evolved from a Cold War novelty to a major marquee for diverse, and sometimes eccentric, global cinema. Attracting an audience this year of more than 60,000, the Berlinale conjures up neither the glitz nor the summer sun of the more celebrated Cannes and Venice festivals.

The British film "In This World," about two Afghan refugees, won the top award at the Berlin Film Festival, while Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman of "The Hours" shared the best actress prize. The 53rd annual Berlinale, one of Europe's top three film festivals, named Sam Rockwell best actor for playing U.S. game show mogul Chuck Barris in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind."