BERLIN, Feb 5, (AFP): The Arab Spring uprisings and political turmoil in the West will dominate the 62nd Berlin film festival starting Thursday, as Hollywood royalty sprinkles stardust in the frigid German capital.
Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman, Robert Pattinson, Antonio Banderas and Christian Bale are due in town to present new films at the first major European festival of the year, and arguably its most topical.
“Farewell My Queen”, a drama starring Diane Kruger as Marie Antoinette on the eve of the French Revolution and told from the point of view of the underclass — a kind of “Occupy Versailles” — will set the tone for 11 days of world premieres.
“There is a clear theme running through the Berlinale this year and that is upheaval,” festival director Dieter Kosslick told reporters as he unveiled the line-up featuring nearly 400 films.
“A lot of stories are seen from the perspective of the underdog and that theme of radical change and political awakening applies to our opening film too.”

Prize
“Farewell My Queen” by French director Benoit Jacquot is one of 18 pictures vying for the Golden Bear top prize, to be awarded by a jury led by British director Mike Leigh and including US actor Jake Gyllenhaal, Franco-British actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn and French director Francois Ozon.
Also on the panel is Iran’s Asghar Farhadi, who took home the Golden Bear and swept the acting prizes last year for his wrenching drama “A Separation”, setting the film on a trajectory that has now seen it nominated for a foreign-language Oscar.
Berlin prides itself on being “edgier” than its chief competitors, Cannes and Venice, with a more overtly political programme.

Spotlight
This year’s event will spotlight the Arab Spring one year after the fall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak with documentaries shot on the ground, panel discussions and feature films dealing with the region’s history and cultures.
And three films in the festival’s Forum section will spotlight the nuclear disaster at Fukushima last March, including “No Man’s Zone” which takes viewers into the contaminated area around the stricken reactors.
Jolie is to present her directorial debut “In the Land of Blood and Honey”, a Bosnian wartime love story, and participate in an audience discussion after the screening.
Streep will pick up an honorary Golden Bear for her life’s work and the festival will show the top films of her career culminating in a gala screening of her new Margaret Thatcher biopic “The Iron Lady”.
In the competition, 2007 Golden Bear winner Wang Quan’an will unveil his sweeping Chinese epic, “White Deer Plain”, based on “one of the most controversial novels in modern Chinese literature,” Kosslick said.

Chen Zhongshi’s prize-winning bestseller depicts the hardscrabble lives of generations of families in the countryside before the rise of communism.
Filipino art-house star Brillante Mendoza’s will join the running with “Captive”, starring French screen icon Isabelle Huppert as an aid worker kidnapped by Islamic extremist group Abu Sayyaf.
US actor and film-maker Billy Bob Thornton, who won a screenwriting Oscar for his own first outing as a feature film director, 1996’s “Sling Blade”, will premiere the Vietnam War-era drama “Jayne Mansfield’s Car” in the competition.
Other entries in the main showcase include British drama “Bel Ami”, based on a Guy de Maupassant novel and starring Pattinson of “Twilight” fame as a young man who manipulates Paris’s wealthiest women to realise his ambitions.

Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Christina Ricci co-star in the picture, which will appear out of competition.
Bale will also appear out of competition in “The Flowers of War” by Chinese master Zhang Yimou. British Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald will unveil his keenly anticipated documentary on the life of the late reggae superstar Bob Marley. And Shah Rukh Khan will delight Bollywood fans at a screening of the German-India co-production “Don - The King is Back”.
The 62nd Berlinale, the first major European film festival of the year, kicks off on Thursday with 23 productions screening in the main showcase.
Eighteen pictures will vie for the Golden Bear top prize at the event running to February 19, with a jury led by British director Mike Leigh selecting the winner. All the competition entries are world premieres.

Here is the complete list including the English title, director and countries where the films were produced:
* “Barbara”, Christian Petzold. Germany.
* “Bel Ami”, Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod and starring Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Christina Ricci. Britain (out of competition)
* “Caesar Must Die” (Cesare deve morire), Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. Italy.
* “Captive”, Brillante Mendoza and starring Isabelle Huppert. France/Philippines/Germany/Britain.
* “Childish Games” (Dictado), Antonio Chavarrias. Spain.
* “Coming Home” (A moi seule), Frederic Videau. France.
* “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”, Stephen Daldry and starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.

United States (out of competition)
* “Farewell My Queen” (Les adieux a la Reine), Benoit Jacquot, starring Diane Kruger. France/Spain. (opening film)
* “The Flowers Of War” (Jin Ling Shi San Chai), Zhang Yimou and starring Christian Bale. China. (out of competition)
* “Flying Swords Of Dragon Gate”, Tsui Hark and starring Jet Li. Hong Kong/China (out of competition).
* “Home For The Weekend”, Hans-Christian Schmid. Germany.
* “Jayne Mansfield’s Car”, Billy Bob Thornton and starring Thornton, Robert Duvall, John Hurt and Kevin Bacon. Russia/United States.
* “Just The Wind” (Csak a szel), Bence Fliegauf. Hungary/Germany/France.
* “Mercy” (Gnade), Matthias Glasner. Germany/Norway.
* “Meteora”, Spiros Stathoulopoulos. Germany/Greece.
* “Postcards From The Zoo” (Kebun binatang), Edwin. Indonesia/Germany/Hong Kong/China.
* “A Royal Affair” (En Kongelig Affaere), Nikolaj Arcel. Denmark/Czech Republic/Germany/Sweden.
* “Shadow Dancer”, James Marsh and starring Clive Owen. Britain/Ireland. (out of competition)
* “Sister” (L’enfant d’en haut), Ursula Meier. Switzerland/France.
* “Tabu”, Miguel Gomes. Portugal/Germany/Brazil/France.
* “Tey” (Aujourd’hui), Alain Gomis. France/Senegal.
* “War Witch” (Rebelle), Kim Nguyen. Canada.
* “White Deer Plain” (Bai lu yuan), Wang Quan’an. China.

Special screenings:
* “Haywire”, Steven Soderbergh and starring Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, and Antonio Banderas. United States.
* “The Iron Lady”, Phyllida Lloyd and starring Meryl Streep, who will receive a Golden Bear prize for her life’s work. Britain.
Here are the winners since 1992 of the Golden Bear top prize at the Berlin film festival, one of the world’s key cinema showcases:

* 1992: “Grand Canyon” by Lawrence Kasdan (US)
* 1993: Tie between “Xian Hun Nu” (The Woman from the Lake of Scented Souls) by Xie Fei (China) and “Hsi Yen” (The Wedding Banquet) by Ang Lee (Taiwan)
* 1994: “In the Name of the Father” by Jim Sheridan (Ireland/Britain)
* 1995: “L’appat” (Fresh Bait) by Bertrand Tavernier (France)
* 1996: “Sense and Sensibility” by Ang Lee (US)
* 1997: “The People vs. Larry Flint” by Milos Forman (US)
* 1998: “Central do Brasil” (Central Station) by Walter Salles (Brazil)
* 1999: “The Thin Red Line” by Terence Malick (US)
* 2000: “Magnolia” by Paul Thomas Anderson (US)
* 2001: “Intimacy” by Patrice Chereau (France)
* 2002: “Bloody Sunday” by Paul Greengrass (Britain/Ireland) and “Sen To Chihiro No Kamikakushi” (Spirited Away) by Hayao Miyazaki (Japan)
* 2003: “In This World” by Michael Winterbottom (Britain)
* 2004: “Gegen die Wand” (Head-On) by Fatih Akin (Germany/Turkey)
* 2005: “U-Carmen eKhayelitsha” (Carmen In Khayelitsha) by Mark Dornford-May (South Africa)
* 2006: “Grbavica” by Jasmila Zbanic (Bosnia-Hercegovina)
* 2007: “Tuya De Hunshi” (Tuya’s Marriage) by Wang Quan’an (China)
* 2008: “Tropa de Elite” (Elite Squad) by Jose Padilha (Brazil/Argentina)
* 2009: “La teta asustada” (The Milk of Sorrow) by Claudia Llosa (Spain/Peru)
* 2010: “Bal” (Honey) by Semih Kaplanoglu (Turkey/Germany)
* 2011: “Jodaeiye Nader Az Simin” (A Separation) by Asghar Farhadi (Iran)