Berlin International Film Festival

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based on the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

The Allied High Commission was established by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France after the 1948 breakdown of the Allied Control Council, to regulate and supervise the development of the newly established Federal Republic of Germany.

A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon the festival's focus, can include international and domestic releases. Some film festivals focus on a specific filmmaker, genre of film, or on a subject matter. Several film festivals focus solely on presenting short films of a defined maximum length. Film festivals are typically annual events. Some film historians, including Jerry Beck, do not consider film festivals as official releases of the film.

The Golden Bear is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival. The bear is the heraldic animal of Berlin, featured on both the coat of arms and flag of Berlin.

Cinderella is a 1950 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale of the same title, it is the 12th Disney animated feature film. The film was directed by Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, and Clyde Geronimi. It features the voices of Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Rhoda Williams, James MacDonald, Luis van Rooten, and Don Barclay.

The FIAPF, created in 1933, is an organization composed with 36 member associations from 30 of the leading audiovisual production countries. Its Secretariat is located in Brussels, Belgium. FIAPF is also in charge of regulating international film festivals, including some of the world's most important ones.

East Berlin was the de facto capital city of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. The Western Allied powers did not recognize East Berlin as the GDR's capital, nor the GDR's authority to govern East Berlin. On 3 October 1990, the day Germany was officially reunified, East and West Berlin formally reunited as the city of Berlin.

The 20th annual Berlin International Film Festival was supposed to be held from 26 June to 7 July 1970. The festival opened with Klann – grand guignol by Patrick Ledoux. However, on 5 July the competition was cancelled and no major prizes were awarded, due to a controversy surrounding the participation of Michael Verhoeven's anti-war film o.k.

Michael Verhoeven is a German film director.

o.k., sometimes spelled O.K., is a 1970 West German anti-war film written and directed by Michael Verhoeven. It was chosen as West Germany's official submission to the 43rd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, but did not receive a nomination. The film was also entered into the 20th Berlin International Film Festival. However, the competition was cancelled and no prizes were awarded, over controversy surrounding the film.

George Cooper Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer. Films he produced were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture six times while he had five nominations as Best Director, winning twice.

The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the "Big Five" International film festivals worldwide, which include the Big Three European Film Festivals, alongside the Toronto Film Festival in Canada and the Sundance Film Festival in the United States. The Festivals are internationally acclaimed for giving creators the artistic freedom to express themselves through film. In 1951, FIAPF formally accredited the festival.

The Cannes Film Festival, until 2003 called the International Film Festival and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around the world. Founded in 1946, the invitation-only festival is held annually at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès. The festival was formally accredited by the FIAPF in 1951.

The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Attempts to contain it there failed, allowing the virus to spread to other areas of Asia and later worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of 10 March 2023, the pandemic had caused more than 676 million cases and 6.88 million confirmed deaths, making it one of the deadliest in history.

The Golden Bear is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival. The bear is the heraldic animal of Berlin, featured on both the coat of arms and flag of Berlin.

Carlo Chatrian is an Italian journalist and the artistic director of the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).

Víctor Clavijo Cobos is a Spanish actor. He earned early public recognition in Spain for his performance in the serial Al salir de clase.

The Golden Bear is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival. The bear is the heraldic animal of Berlin, featured on both the coat of arms and flag of Berlin.

A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits". In the United States, short films were generally termed short subjects from the 1920s into the 1970s when confined to two 35 mm reels or less, and featurettes for a film of three or four reels. "Short" was an abbreviation for either term.

Dieter Kosslick is a German film critic, journalist and researcher. He was the fourth director of the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) from 1 May 2001, when he took over from Moritz de Hadeln, until 2019.

The Golden Bear is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival. The bear is the heraldic animal of Berlin, featured on both the coat of arms and flag of Berlin.

Jafar Panâhi is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly associated with the Iranian New Wave film movement. After several years of making short films and working as an assistant director for fellow Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi achieved international recognition with his feature film debut, The White Balloon (1995). The film won the Caméra d'Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, the first major award an Iranian film won at Cannes.

The 56th Berlin International Film Festival was held from 9 to 19 February 2006. The festival opened with Snow Cake by Marc Evans. Digitally restored version of Sam Peckinpah's 1972 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid served as the closing film. British actress Charlotte Rampling was selected as the head of the jury. The Golden Bear was awarded to Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams directed by Jasmila Žbanić.

The FIAPF, created in 1933, is an organization composed with 36 member associations from 30 of the leading audiovisual production countries. Its Secretariat is located in Brussels, Belgium. FIAPF is also in charge of regulating international film festivals, including some of the world's most important ones.

The Cannes Film Festival, until 2003 called the International Film Festival and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around the world. Founded in 1946, the invitation-only festival is held annually at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès. The festival was formally accredited by the FIAPF in 1951.

A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits". In the United States, short films were generally termed short subjects from the 1920s into the 1970s when confined to two 35 mm reels or less, and featurettes for a film of three or four reels. "Short" was an abbreviation for either term.

Renée Sintenis, née Renate Alice Sintenis, also known as Frau Emil R. Weiss, was a German sculptor, medallist, and graphic artist who worked in Berlin. She created mainly small-sized animal sculptures, female nudes, portraits, and sports statuettes. She is especially known for her Berlin Bear sculptures, which was used as the design for the Berlinale's top flim award, the Golden Bear.

The coat of arms of Berlin is used by the German city state as well as the city itself. Introduced in 1954 for West Berlin, it shows a black bear on a white shield. On top of the shield is a special crown, created by the amalgamation of the mural crown of a city with the so-called people's crown, used in Germany to denote a republic. Berlin's various boroughs use their own emblems.

The 3rd annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 18 to 28 June 1953.

Alexanderplatz is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin. The square is named after the Russian Tsar Alexander I, which also denotes the larger neighbourhood stretching from Mollstraße in the north-east to Spandauer Straße and the Rotes Rathaus in the south-west.

The Kino International is a film theater in Berlin, built from 1961 to 1963. It is located on Karl-Marx-Allee in former East Berlin. It hosted premieres of the DEFA film studios until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Today it is a protected historic building and one of the venues of the annual Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).

Potsdamer Platz is a public square and traffic intersection in the center of Berlin, Germany, lying about 1 km (1,100 yd) south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, and close to the southeast corner of the Tiergarten park. It is named after the city of Potsdam, some 25 km (16 mi) to the south west, and marks the point where the old road from Potsdam passed through the city wall of Berlin at the Potsdam Gate. After developing within the space of little over a century from an intersection of rural thoroughfares into the most bustling traffic intersection in Europe, it was totally destroyed during World War II and then left desolate during the Cold War era when the Berlin Wall bisected its former location. Since German reunification, Potsdamer Platz has been the site of major redevelopment projects.

Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals.

Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and cities in the West had at least one dance hall, and almost always featured live musicians playing a range of music from strict tempo ballroom dance music to big band, swing and jazz. One of the most famous dance hall musicians was Glenn Miller.

Christie is an audiovisual company headquartered in Cypress, California.

A laser projector is a device that projects changing laser beams on a screen to create a moving image for entertainment or professional use. It consists of a housing that contains lasers, mirrors, galvanometer scanners, and other optical components. A laser projector can contain one laser light source for single-color projection or three sources for RGB full color projection.

Liselotte Pulver, sometimes credited as Lilo Pulver, is a Swiss actress. Pulver was one of the biggest stars of German cinema in the 1950s and 1960s, where she often was cast as a tomboy. She is well known for her hearty and joyful laughter. Her films outside of German cinema include A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958), One, Two, Three (1961) and The Nun (1966).

The Academy of Arts is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany.

The Sony Center is a Sony-sponsored complex of eight buildings located at the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany, designed by Helmut Jahn. It opened in 2000 and houses Sony's German headquarters. The cinemas in the center were closed at the end of 2019.

CineStar is a cinema company based in Lübeck, Germany.

Martin-Gropius-Bau, commonly known as Gropius Bau, is an important exhibition building in Berlin, Germany. Originally a museum of applied arts, the building has been a listed historical monument since 1966. It is located at 7 Niederkirchnerstraße in Berlin-Kreuzberg,

Matthijs Wouter Knol is a Dutch film programme curator and producer, mainly known for his work at several international film festivals and as director of the European Film Academy. Knol's career started in Amsterdam, where he initially worked as a producer of documentary films and for IDFA, the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam.

The Marché du Film is one of the largest film markets in the world. Established in 1959, it is held annually in conjunction with the Festival de Cannes as known as the Cannes Film Festival.

Cannes is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The city is known for its association with the rich and famous, its luxury hotels and restaurants, and for several conferences.

The American Film Market (AFM) is a film industry event held each year in early November.

CineStar is a cinema company based in Lübeck, Germany.

Park Chan-wook is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, producer, and former film critic. He is considered one of the most prominent filmmakers of South Korean cinema as well as world cinema in 21st century. His films have gained notoriety for their cinematography and framing, black humor and often brutal subject matter.

Frances Louise McDormand is an American actress and producer. Throughout her career spanning over four decades, McDormand has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and one Tony Award, making her one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting". Additionally, she has received two Golden Globe Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. Although primarily recognized for her roles in small-budget independent films, McDormand's worldwide box office gross exceeds $2.2 billion helped by her appearances in Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012).

Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and photographer. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in Giant (1956). In the next ten years he made a name for himself in television, and by the end of the 1960s had appeared in several films, notably Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Hang 'Em High (1968). Hopper also began a prolific and acclaimed photography career in the 1960s.

Jia Zhangke is a Chinese-language film and television director, screenwriter, producer, actor and writer. He is the dean of the Shanxi Film Academy of Shanxi Media College and the dean of the Vancouver Film Academy of Shanghai University. He graduated from the Literature Department of Beijing Film Academy. He is generally regarded as a leading figure of the "Sixth Generation" movement of Chinese cinema, a group that also includes such figures as Wang Xiaoshuai, Lou Ye, Wang Quan'an and Zhang Yuan.

Dieter Kosslick is a German film critic, journalist and researcher. He was the fourth director of the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) from 1 May 2001, when he took over from Moritz de Hadeln, until 2019.

Latin America is a cultural concept denoting the Americas where Romance languages—languages derived from Latin—are predominantly spoken. The term was coined in the nineteenth century, to refer to regions in the Americas that were ruled by the Spanish, Portuguese and French empires. The term does not have a precise definition, but it is "commonly used to describe South America, Central America, Mexico, and the islands of the Caribbean." In a narrow sense, it refers to Spanish America, Brazil, French West Indies and French Antillean Creole speaking Caribbean countries. The term "Latin America" is broader than categories such as Hispanic America, which specifically refers to Spanish-speaking countries; and Ibero-America, a term not generally used that specifically refers to Spanish, French and French Creole-speaking countries and Portuguese-speaking countries sometimes leaving French and British excolonies aside.

Central America is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Central America usually consists of seven countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Within Central America is the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from northern Guatemala to central Panama. Due to the presence of several active geologic faults and the Central America Volcanic Arc, there is a high amount of seismic activity in the region, such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes which has resulted in death, injury, and property damage.

The Caribbean is a subregion of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea and its islands, the nearby coastal areas on the mainland may also be included. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, and north of South America.

The Middle East is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia, Asia Minor, East Thrace, Egypt, Iran, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Socotra Archipelago. The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and has been viewed by some to be discriminatory or too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of Western Asia, but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes all of Egypt and all of Turkey.

Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, which are colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as the countries all have names ending with the Persian suffix "-stan", meaning "land of". The current geographical location of Central Asia was formerly part of the historic region of Turkestan, also known as Turan.

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of 1,564,116 square kilometres, with a population of just 3.3 million, making it the world's most sparsely populated sovereign nation. Mongolia is the world's largest landlocked country that does not border a closed sea, and much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west and the Gobi Desert to the south. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to roughly half of the country's population.

Paradise Now is a political and psychological drama film directed by Hany Abu-Assad about two Palestinian men preparing for a suicide attack in Israel. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.

Ajami is a 2009 Israeli Arab drama film. Its plot is set in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel.

Harmony Lessons is a 2013 Kazakh-German drama film directed by Emir Baigazin. It was awarded a Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution for camera work at the Berlinale in 2013.

Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories is a 2015 Vietnamese drama film directed by Phan Đăng Di.

Sharon Vonne Stone is an American actress. Known for primarily playing femme fatales and women of mystery on film and television, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1990s. She is the recipient of various accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a nomination for an Academy Award. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1995 and was named Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 2005.

Bai Ling is a Chinese-American actress known for her work in the films The Crow, Nixon, Red Corner, Crank: High Voltage, Dumplings, Wild Wild West, Anna and the King, Southland Tales, and Maximum Impact, as well as TV shows Entourage and Lost. Notably, she won the Best Supporting Actress awards at the 2004 Hong Kong Film Awards and the 2004 Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan for her role in Dumplings.

Sophia Jane Myles is an English actress. She is best known in film for portraying Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward in Thunderbirds (2004), Isolde in Tristan & Isolde (2006), Darcy in Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Erika in Underworld (2003) and Underworld: Evolution (2006) and Freya in Outlander (2008).

Clinton Eastwood Jr. is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, he rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" of Spaghetti Westerns during the mid-1960s and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity. Elected in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was an English actor and singer. In a long career spanning more than 60 years, Lee often portrayed villains, and appeared as Count Dracula in seven Hammer Horror films, ultimately playing the role nine times. His other film roles include Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Count Dooku in several Star Wars films (2002–2008), and Saruman in both the Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) and the Hobbit film trilogy (2012–2014).