by Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE

The winners of jury prizes at the 2005 Berlinale were announced at a brief press conference today with festival competition jury president Roland Emmerich and jurors Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Bai Ling, Franka Potente, Wouter Barendrecht, Nino Cerruti, and Andrei Kurkov.

The Golden Bear went to Marc Dornford-May's South African film "U-Carmen eKhayelitsha" an adaption of the opera "Carmen" set in a South African township and translated into the Xhosa language.

Noted cinematographer Gu Changwei's directorial debut "Kong que" (Peacock), from the People's Republic of China, won the Silver Bear Jury Grand Prix. It is a portrayal of daily life within a small-town working class family in China between 1977 and 1984.

[A scene from "U-Carmen eKhayelitsha", image provided by the Berlinale.]

by Zsolt Gyenge/Talent Press

"Tickets" was one of the most eagerly awaited films of this year's Berlinale. Shown out of competition, this sketch film, which brings together three famous filmmakers (Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami and Ken Loach, presents a train trip from Central-Europe to Rome. The three directors tell three different stories but the location and some of the characters are present in all three films. In fact, it is not right to say three films because the parts are not strictly divided as usual, and we almost have a continuous story, where only the accent put on different characters changes.

The first problem which arises is how the three “auteurs” managed to work together, how they succeeded to do separate films within the same structure. Both filmmakers present at the discussion – Loach and Kiarostami – argued that everybody made his own movie. “There is no other way of working, you have to follow the internal logic of your own subject”, Loach said. Kiarostami added that real communication between them begun only when linking the parts together. Not only three directors, but three different cultures and languages were brought together for the movie. For Kiarostami, the shooting proved that “language is not the most important thing because you can communicate with your physionomy, with your faces and with your eyes.” So cultural differences can be overcome.

by Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE

Peter Mackie Burns' "Milk" was awarded the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 2005 Berlinale last night, with jurors Gabriela Tagliavini from Argentina, Marten Rabarts of New Zealand and Susan Korda from the U.S. writing in a statement that they selected the movie, "For its assured portrayal of intimacy regained across the generational divide, with a superb script matched equally in performance and filmic craft."

The jury presented two Silver Bear awards to, in their words, "to two films whose makers examine the human condition with cinematic voices as clear as they are different." The winners were Jay Duplass for "The Intervention" and Izabela Plucinska for "Jam Session". Duplass and his brother Mark were at Sundance last month with their first feature, "The Puffy Chair." A special mention went to Dani Rosenberg for the short film, "Don Khishot BeYerushalaim" (Don Quixote in Jerusalem).

Later Tuesday night, at the annual Panorama bash, held again inside the Berlinale Palast at the club Adagio, Wieland Speck, Margaret von Schiller, and the international jury awarded the prizes for best shorts in the festival's Panorama section.

[After winning the Silver Bear for his short "The Intervention," Jay Duplass poses with his medal at the Panorama Party in Berlin. Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE.]

by Steve Ayorinde/Talent Press

It's simply Planet Talent.

Young, enthusiastic and potentially enterprising filmmakers from every part of the world converging on the 1950s edifice dedicated to the cultures of the world - The House of World Culture. And they represent the positive side of a globalised world.

There is no better way to appreciate the cultural diversity and the creative energy in these people, who are mostly under 30, than in the unity of purpose that has brought them to Berlin. They are all here to celebrate the 7th art and showcase their cultures and worldview under the platform of the Berlinale Talent Campus.

In its third edition this year, the Talent Campus is proving to be an integral part of the Berlinale, and one of the most popular segments. Not even the wintery weather that has brought intermittent showers of rain with it can deny the talents an exciting time in Berlin. More than 500 of them are here to interact, showcase their promise and learn from about 90 film experts from some 21 countries, including directors whose films are in competition. They may also gain useful insights from the special focus of the Talent Campus this year, which is Production Design; but they will not be limited to that.

[Image provided by Talent Press.]

by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE

Veterans of the festival circuit would most likely know Rajendra Roy as the programmer of the Hamptons International Film Festival. While he continues in that role, Roy has also joined the programming team this year at the Berlin International Film Festival, becoming the first American asked to do so, and cementing a growing relationship between the two fests. As an example, participants in the Hamptons' "Rising Stars" program, a project that annually nurtures a group of young actors, travel to Berlin to participate in the Berlinale Talent Campus, described by the festival as "an arena for know how and inspiration, in which the world's next film generation (this year about 500 people from around the world) moves to learn, communicate and exchange experiences."

Berlin chief, Dieter Kosslick, who created the Talent Campus, traveled to the Hamptons fest last October, and tapped Roy to take part in programming this year's Berlinale, lending an American voice to the process. "The starting point was to make sure U.S. indies were seriously considered in the Berlinale," Roy told indieWIRE Monday afternoon at the Talent Campus in the Tiergarten area of the German capital, prior to a panel he moderated on film marketing and distribution. "I also had to learn a lot of German quickly," he added.

[Rajendra Roy at the Talent Campus in Berlin. Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE.]

by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE

Let's just say the first 24 hours or so haven't been the easiest here in Berlin. Eugene (iW editor-in-chief) and I headed out easily enough, breezing through check-in at JFK on Air France, greeted with a friendly "bon jour" before going to the desk. The flight was pretty nice too, the least amount of turbulence crossing the Atlantic I can ever remember, and we arrived on time.

Things changed from there... The pile up to get through customs at Paris CDG was quite thick with a flight also coming in at the same time from India. Our friends from Wellspring and THINKFilm were on our flight, and we chatted waiting for our turn. While waiting, our friends told us their flight to Berlin was in one hour. What!! Why are we (the iW folks) on a flight to Berlin in three hours?