Berlin - Arab Today
The creator of hit US television series "Mad Men" and French actress Audrey Tautou will serve on the jury of the 65th Berlin film festival, organisers said Tuesday.
The February 5 to 15 Berlinale will have a seven-member panel to award the Golden and Silver Bear top prizes among 19 international contenders.
US director and screenwriter Darren Aronofsky, behind "Black Swan", "The Wrestler" and the 2014 blockbuster "Noah", will be the jury president, the festival had announced previously.
He will be joined by Matthew Weiner, creator, executive producer and screenwriter of "Mad Men", and Tautou, best known to international audiences for her pixie-like turn in the 2001 global hit "Amelie".
South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, whose dystopian English-language debut "Snowpiercer" starring Chris Evans ("Captain America") and Tilda Swinton ("We Need to Talk About Kevin") made a splash in 2013, will also be on the panel.
US producer Martha De Laurentiis ("Hannibal"), Spanish-German actor Daniel Bruehl ("Rush") and previous Golden Bear winner Claudia Llosa, the Peruvian director of "The Milk of Sorrow", will round out the jury.
They will pick the winners among a selection marked by many films depicting "strong women in extreme situations", festival director Dieter Kosslick told reporters.
The opening film, Isabel Coixet's "Nobody Wants the Night", features French actress Juliette Binoche as Josephine Peary, who trekked across the Greenland tundra in 1908 to rescue her missing husband.
Other keenly awaited premieres in competition include Werner Herzog's "Queen of the Desert" starring Nicole Kidman as British explorer and spy Gertrude Bell, Terrence Malick's caustic look at fame, "Knight of Cups", and dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi's "Taxi".
The Berlinale ranks among the top global cinema showcases and is the first major European film festival of the year.
Last year, Chinese director Diao Yinan's cop thriller "Black Coal, Thin Ice" took home the Golden Bear.
Source: AFP