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Andreas Dresen’s favorite Berlinale memory, as you’d expect, involves Currywurst.

“I was on the jury one year, And it was clear I was the local guy among all these big names,” he recalls. “Now the festival had a vegan menu already then, and at the awards dinner, we had great food but they were quite small portions and [jury president] Wong Kar Wai turns to me and says ‘Andreas, can’t we get some real food?’ So I took them all, Susanne Bier, Shirin Neshat, Tim Robbins, everyone in tuxes and evening gowns, to [legendary Berlin snack bar] Curry 36 for a Currywurst. Even Tim Robbins, who actually is vegetarian, tucked in. I personally saw him gobble up three Currywursts. It was the most Berlin moment ever.”

Dresen has had a few. The 60-year-old director has been a regular at Germany’s top film festival since 1991 when his student film So schnell es geht nach...

Vadim Perelman’s “Persian Lessons” has been pulled from the international feature film Oscar race, where the acclaimed WWII drama was representing Belarus.

As part of the international feature film submission process, a country’s selection committee is required to provide a list of credits in key creative positions, both above and below the line. Variety understands that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences removed the film from consideration because it didn’t meet the category’s eligibility requirements for the majority of creative control to originate from residents of the submitting country.

The WWII drama, which world premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last year, is set in occupied France in 1942 and stars Nahuel Perez Biscayart (“Beats Per Minute”) as a Belgian Jew who narrowly avoids execution by a Nazi firing squad when he claims to be Persian. He is then enlisted to teach Farsi — which he...

Vadim Perelman’s “Persian Lessons” will represent Belarus in the best international feature film race at the 2021 Oscars, Variety has learned.

The WWII drama, which world premiered at the Berlin Film Festival this year, stars Nahuel Perez Biscayart (“Beats Per Minute”) as a Belgian Jew who narrowly avoids execution by a Nazi firing squad when he claims to be Persian. Desperate to save himself, he offers to teach Farsi — a language he does not know — to the head of the camp, played by German star Lars Eidinger (“Clouds of Sils Maria”).

Perelman (“House of Sand and Fog”) directed from a script by Ilya Zofin, based on the story “Erfindung Einer Sprache” by Wolfgang Kohlhaase. “Persian Lessons” is produced by Moscow-based Hype Film (“Leto”) and co-produced by Berlin-based Lm Media and One Two Films in association with Belarusfilm. Memento Films International is handling world sales.

“The film is especially important and relevant in our time,...

A Jewish prisoner pretends to be Iranian to escape being shot and is then forced to teach Farsi, a language he doesn’t speak, to a Nazi superior in Persian Lessons, the new film from Ukrainian-born, Canada-based director Vadim Perelman (The House of Sand and Fog). “Inspired by true events,” as per an onscreen note, and based on a short story by Wolfgang Kohlhaase, this meticulously polished Holocaust tale offers something of a new angle on largely familiar material: The film explores memory, linguistics and transmission against the backdrop of a transit camp, where the detainee will likely be ...

A Jewish prisoner pretends to be Iranian to escape being shot and is then forced to teach Farsi, a language he doesn’t speak, to a Nazi superior in Persian Lessons, the new film from Ukrainian-born, Canada-based director Vadim Perelman (The House of Sand and Fog). “Inspired by true events,” as per an onscreen note, and based on a short story by Wolfgang Kohlhaase, this meticulously polished Holocaust tale offers something of a new angle on largely familiar material: The film explores memory, linguistics and transmission against the backdrop of a transit camp, where the detainee will likely be ...

Cohen Media Group has acquired North American rights to the Holocaust drama “Persian Lessons,” following its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, where it has become a buzz title. The film was produced after the lead producers met at a Variety “10 Producers to Watch” event in Cannes in 2018, and decided to work together on the project.

Cmg plans to release the film in late 2020. “Persian Lessons” is directed by “House of Sand and Fog” director Vadim Perelman from a script by Ilya Zofin, based on the story “Erfindung Einer Sprache” by Wolfgang Kohlhaase.

Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (“If You Saw His Heart”) plays a Belgian Jew who claims to be Persian when he is rounded up and about to face the firing squad. The terrified prisoner desperately tries to save himself by agreeing to teach Farsi – a language he does not know and thus makes up – to an eager-to-learn Nazi transit camp commandant,...

Sylvester Groth shines in this East German movie about a luckless private in a Polish prison, thrown in with a group of defeated Nazi war criminals. For a country that usually paints the ideological divide in black and white red, Frank Beyer’s film of Hermann Kant’s semi-autobiographical story is surprisingly even-handed. An excellent addition to films from behind the old Iron Curtain.

Held for Questioning

DVD

The Defa Film Library

1982 / Color / 1:37 flat full frame / 98 min. / Der Aufenthalt, The Turning Point, Staying Alive / Availability noted August, 2017 / available through the Defa Film Library Store / 29.95

Starring: Sylvester Groth, Fred Düren, Matthias Günther, Klaus Piontek, Hans-Uwe Bauer, Alexander Van Heteren, Horst Hiemer, Günter Junghans, Krzysztof Chamiec, Gustaw Lutkiewicz, Roman Wilhelmi, Andrzej Krasicki, Zygmunt Maciejewski, Andrzej Pieczynski.

Cinematography: Eberhard Geick

Film Editor: Rita Hiller

Original Music: Günther Fischer

Written by Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Dieter Wolf from a novel by Hermann Kant

Produced by...

X-Men spinoff and Trainspotting sequel to play Out of Competition.

A further 13 films have been invited to screen in the Competition and Berlinale Special section at the 67th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival.

The festival has added commercial clout to its Out Of Competition lineup in the shape of Danny Boyle’s T2 Trainspotting and X-Men spinoff Logan.

There are also competition berths for new films by Hong Sangsoo, Thomas Arslan, Volker Schlöndorff, Sabu, Álex de la Iglesia and Josef Hader.

Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha’s latest, Viceroy’s House, will have its world premiere out of competition at the festival. Starring Hugh Bonneville alongside Gillian Anderson, the period drama set in 1947 India depicts Lord Mountbatten, the man charged with handing India back to its people.

Also having its world premiered out of competition will be Álex de la Iglesia’s The Bar, a comedy-thriller about a group of strangers who get...

After an initial line-up that included Aki Kaurismäki‘s The Other Side of Hope, Oren Moverman‘s Richard Gere-led The Dinner, Sally Potter‘s The Party, and Agnieszka Holland‘s Spoor, the Berlin International Film Festival have added more anticipated premieres. Highlights include one of two (maybe three) new Hong Sang-soo films this year, On the Beach at Night Alone, along with Volker Schlöndorff‘s Return to Montauk with Stellan Skarsgård and Nina Hoss, as well as the high-profile world premiere of James Mangold‘s Logan and the international premiere of Danny Boyle‘s T2: Trainspotting.

With Paul Verhoeven serving as jury president for the 67th edition of the festival, check out the new additions below.

Competition

Bamui haebyun-eoseo honja (On the Beach at Night Alone)

South Korea

By Hong Sangsoo (Nobody’s Daughter Haewon, Right Now, Wrong Then)

With Kim Minhee, Seo Younghwa, Jung Jaeyoung, Moon Sungkeun,...

On the Return to Montauk set with Volker Schlöndorff, Nina Hoss (his Barefoot Contessa), and Bronagh Gallagher at Lincoln Center Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Konrad Wolf’s I Was Nineteen (Ich War Neunzehn) co-written with Wolfgang Kohlhaase; Marlen Khutsiev’s It Was In May (Byl Mesyats May) starring Pyotr Todorovskiy; Louis Malle's The Fire Within (Le Feu Follet) based on the novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle with Maurice Ronet, Jeanne Moreau and Alexandra Stewart; Joseph Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa starring Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart; Jean-Pierre Melville's Les Enfants Terribles, adapted from Jean Cocteau’s novel with Nicole Stéphane and Édouard Dermit; and Fritz Lang's Spies (Spione) featuring Rudolf Klein-Rogge and Gerda Maurus, are the six films selected by Volker Schlöndorff as Guest Director of the 43rd Telluride Film Festival.

Michael Curtiz's The Breaking Point was one of Alexander Payne's picks in 2009 Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Alexander Payne,...

Film directors trying to express themselves in East Germany had a tough row to hoe, yet quite a few of them dared to stray beyond the confines of social realism. The Defa Film Library has two new releases from 1966 that were banned and shelved before they could be finished -- and weren't seen until they were patched together in 1990. When You're Older, Dear Adam DVD Defa Film Library 1966-1990 / Color / 2:35 / 74 min. / Wenn du groß bist, lieber Adam / Street Date April, 2016 / Available from the Defa Umass Film Library / 29.95 (separate release) Starring: Stephan Jahnke, Gerry Wolff, Manfred Krug, Daisy Granados, Rolf Römer, Hanns Anselm Perten, Wolfgang Greese, Günther Simon. Cinematography Helmut Grewald Film Editor Monika Schindler Original Music Kurt Zander Written by Egon Günther, Helga Schütz Produced by Defa Directed by Egon Günther Berlin Around the Corner DVD Defa Film Library 1966-90 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 83 min. / Berlin um die ecke / Street Date April,...

Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov’s detention by the Russian authorities has been extended by yet another two months to July 11.

This decision was made by Nikolai Tkachuk, a judge of the Moscow City Court, claiming that the charged offence poses a particular hazard to the public.

Initially, it had been expected that Sentsov’s trial would start yesterday (May 11), the first anniversary after his arrest on the Crimean peninsula in May 2014.

However, Sentsov’s case will be kept in the public eye by the Ukrainian Pavilion at the International Village in Cannes’ Marché du Film in the next two weeks.

Visitors to the Pavilion will be invited to add their names to a petition calling for the 38-year-old director’s release.

This comes after the European Parliament passed a resolution in its plenary session in Strasbourg calling for the ¨immediate release¨ of all Ukrainian citizens illegally detained in Russia, including Sentsov and the Ukrainian pilot and MP...

★★★☆☆ As We Were Dreaming (2015), a coming of age tale about a group of friends growing up in Leipzig, is German director Andreas Dresen's competition entry for the Golden Bear adapted by Wolfgang Kohlhaase from Clemens Meyer's award-winning novel of the same name. As the film opens, Dani (Merlin Rose) is looking for his friend Mark (Joel Basman) in an abandoned cinema. We then travel back in time to their recent past. The wall has fallen and East and West have recently reunited. Dani, Mark, Paul (Frederic Haselon), Pitbull (Marcel Heuperman) and Rico (Julius Nitschkoff) run riot every night, drinking, stealing, hot-wiring cars and smashing them up.

Andreas Dresen's As We Were Dreaming, an adaptation of a German bestselling novel by Clemens Meyer, tries to change our perception of what happened in East Germany in the time after the collapse of the Berlin wall. Instead of presenting daily life in post-wall Leipzig as a depressing and rather boring endeavor, the film is a portrait of ecstatic and anarchic longing. But it tries so hard to film these feeling of a group of young boys that it just feels unreal and distant. All this energy and all these lights are merely a predicable effect and never really come across as something true. The screenplay is written by Wolfgang Kohlhaase, an almost legendary screenwriter in Germany, but As We Were Dreaming may be his...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

It's impossible to resist the urge to compare Pablo Larraín's The Club with John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary, which screened at the Berlinale last year. But Larraín's Competition entry is an even darker indictment of the Catholic Church for its failure to address the sexual abuse by its clergy. Also in today's Berlinale Diary: Jem Cohen's meditative essay, diary and travelogue, Counting, and Andreas Dresen's As We Were Dreaming, adapted from Clemens Meyer's bestselling novel by the legendary screenwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase. » - David Hudson...

It's impossible to resist the urge to compare Pablo Larraín's The Club with John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary, which screened at the Berlinale last year. But Larraín's Competition entry is an even darker indictment of the Catholic Church for its failure to address the sexual abuse by its clergy. Also in today's Berlinale Diary: Jem Cohen's meditative essay, diary and travelogue, Counting, and Andreas Dresen's As We Were Dreaming, adapted from Clemens Meyer's bestselling novel by the legendary screenwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase. » - David Hudson...

The Berlinale will be presenting premieres of several television series this year, including the Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul, the latest from the Danish creators of Borgen and more. Also, "2015: A Space Discovery" is the title of the focus at this year's Berlinale Talents, a program of master classes, discussions and workshops. Among the participants in the various programs are Jury president Darren Aronofsky, Bong Joon-Ho, Andreas Dresen, Joanna Hogg, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Marcel Ophüls, Joshua Oppenheimer, Laura Poitras, Walter Salles, Sebastian Schipper, Wim Wenders and the Yes Men. » - David Hudson...

The Berlinale will be presenting premieres of several television series this year, including the Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul, the latest from the Danish creators of Borgen and more. Also, "2015: A Space Discovery" is the title of the focus at this year's Berlinale Talents, a program of master classes, discussions and workshops. Among the participants in the various programs are Jury president Darren Aronofsky, Bong Joon-Ho, Andreas Dresen, Joanna Hogg, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Marcel Ophüls, Joshua Oppenheimer, Laura Poitras, Walter Salles, Sebastian Schipper, Wim Wenders and the Yes Men. » - David Hudson...

The Berlin International Film Festival is celebrating its opening today, on February 7, 2013 at 7.30 pm. After a few words of greeting from Minister of State for Cultural and Media Affairs Bernd Neumann and Governing Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit, the Festival will be officially opened by Jury President Wong Kar Wai (Hong Kong, China) and Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick. The International Jury – whose other members are Susanne Bier (Denmark), Andreas Dresen (Germany), Ellen Kuras (USA), Shirin Neshat (Iran), Tim Robbins (USA) and Athina Rachel Tsangari (Greece) – will also be introduced during the gala. Anke Engelke will again host the evening. This year’s music will be provided by Ulrich Tukur & Die Rhythmus Boys. 3sat will be broadcasting the opening live. Ziyi Zhang in Yi dai zong shi (The Grandmaster) by Wong Kar Wai Following the gala, Wong Kar Wai’s epic martial-arts drama The Grandmaster will have its international premiere. The director and his leading actors,...

"Ralf Huettner's sleeper hit Vincent Wants to Sea was the surprise best picture winner at the 61st German Film Awards, Germany's version of the Oscars." Scott Roxborough from Berlin for the Hollywood Reporter: "Florian David Fitz, who's better known as a TV performer here, won best actor for his starring performance in Vincent as a Tourette's sufferer who, once in his life, wants to see the ocean."

The Lolas, as these awards are called, have three categories for Best Film: Gold, which has gone to Vincent; Silver, which goes this year to Yasemin Samdereli's immigration comedy Almanya, also picking up the screenplay award (which Samdereli shares with her sister, Nesrin); and Bronze, presented to If Not Us, Who?, Andres Veiel's retelling of the love story between Gudrun Ensslin and Bernward Vesper and their breakup when Ensslin enters into her fateful relationship with Andreas Baader.

Tom Tykwer wins Best Director for Three,...

Cologne, Germany -- The Berlin Film Festival has picked two of Germany's most prolific and prestigious film talents -- acting diva Hanna Schygulla and screenwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase -- for its 2010 lifetime achievement awards.

The choice is particularly inspired, as Schygulla and Kohlhaase each represent a distinct period in German cinema -- West and East respectively -- and both have seen a late-period revival in their careers.

"Schygulla's name is inseparably connected with Rainer Werner Fassbinder's films (while) Wolfgang Kohlhaase adopted a course that was new for (East German state studio) Defa," said Berlin Festival Director Dieter Kosslick.

Hanna Schygulla appeared in 23 Fassbinder productions -- including "The Marriage of Maria Braun," "Berlin Alexanderplatz" and "Lili Marleen" and became the on-screen face of the new German cinema movement of the 1970s and 80s. More recently she starred in Fatih Akin's "The Edge of Heaven" (2007) in a role that won her...

Berlin -- "Whisky With Vodka," the new film from German director Andreas Dresen, will have its world premiere at the Munich Film Festival this month.

The comedy stars Henry Hubschen as a lovable but alcoholic actor whose career and love life are sliding off the rails. "Whisky With Vodka" sees Dresen reteam with screenwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase, who penned the script to the director's 2005 sleeper hit "Summer in Berlin."

Dresden's most recent film, the critically acclaimed seniors sex dramedy "Cloud 9," won him the best director prize at this year's German Film Awards, Germany's version of the Oscars.

"Whisky With Vodka" will premiere in Munich on June 30 before heading to the Karlovy Vary Festival, where it will have its international premiere July 6.

The Munich Film Festival (June 26-July 4) will announce its complete lineup Thursday.