After nearly four hundred films screening over ten days to 21,000 accredited guests and a third of a million ticket buyers, the Berlin International Film Festival drew to a close this past Sunday. The 68th installment of Europe’s largest film festival was a robust edition, with an unusually-high number of worthy films spread over the Berlinale’s dozen sections. As he did in once already in 2014 with “The Grand Budapest,” Wes Anderson

Intimacy and sex are essential elements to finding happiness in life, a theme found in this year's winning film. "Touch Me Not,” by Adina Pintilie, has won the Golden Bear prize at this year's Berlinale. The festival opened on February 15th and closed today and included around 400 films. Of those, nineteen were competing for the top Golden Bear prize. Romanian director Adina Pintilie said she had not expected to win the award for her film

The mother and daughter lead the fat sow to the boar’s pen. They pry open their mouths and pour bottles of rum down their throats to get them in the mood. As they begin to mate, the young woman lingers behind to watch. They need the sow to give birth, for soon the young woman’s fiancé and future family will arrive and they will need the meat for the celebration. Her name is Maria (María Mercedes Coroy) and she has been

Ever since his Silver Bear win earlier this year at Berlin Jayro Bustamante's IXCANUL (pronounced eesh-kanool) has garnered about fifteen different awards and distinctions. This good year gave Bustamante, a filmmaker from Guatemala, some much-needed exposure and, hopefully, even-better means to make another film soon. In IXCANUL Maria, 17, lives on the slopes of an active volcano. An arranged marriage is

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As usual, lots of mesmerizingly-good cinema to see and report on at the ongoing Berlinale. I'm a die-hard Cannester (it sounds weird, I know) but somehow Berlin being held in February just seems to work out better timing-wise for a lot of the more vital and less-established filmmakers. The wild, young things are here in Berlin and the older, more reliable filmmakers wait until May to make an appearance. Some, like Terrence Malick

Actor Shia LaBeouf cannot handle Germany's climate--there's something in the air there and it's gone to his head. At the Berlinale, which ends tomorrow, he's shown up at his film's premiere wearing a paper bag (which reads "I'm not famous anymore") over his head (while wearing a tuxedo, no less) and stormed out of a press conference after dribbling some nonsense about sardines and trawling. And then there's that L.A. performance art project

The 63rd edition of the Berlinale will open tomorrow Thursday evening for ten days. And like every year, it’s the diversity of the films on hand which makes this festival remarkable. More than 400 titles will be screened, including big-budget Hollywood movies and a slew of European films (including several first features) addressing controversial contemporary issues like homosexuality within the Catholic Church or land

Gallic cinema's three most visible actresses, Juliette Binoche, Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert, will be present at Berlin next month, their latest films having been selected for the festival as announced by the festival’s organizers just before the weekend. Catherine Deneuve will be presenting “Elle S’en Va” (“She’s leaving,” in French) by Emmanuelle Bercot, Huppert appears in “La Religieuse” (The Nun) dir-