The International
Last night the 59th Berlin Film Festival opened with the rather topical movie The International, starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts and directed by German filmmaker Tom Tykwer.
Despite being developed six years before the financial crisis in which we find ourselves fact really does become fiction as Owen and Watts' characters try to bring to justice one of the world's most powerful banks.
Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as their targets will stop at nothing, even murder, to continue financing terror and war.
But the film's great action scenes and settings, moving from Berlin, Milan, New York to Istanbul, weren't enough to save the film from the critics as it was met with mediocre reviews at best as well as a few boos.
But the festival looks set to pick up as eighteen movies go head to head for the prestigious Golden Bear which will be decided by the jury, which is led by British actress and Oscar winner Tilda Swinton.
The festival is famed for screening hard hitting cinema and 2009 looks like it will be no different with the like of Mammoth, which tackles issues of globalisation, London River, which follows two people trying to find their children after the London bombings and Storm, which looks at the war in the former Yugoslavia all on the agenda.
However there will be plenty of comedy also on show over the next ten days as The PInk Panther 2 and My One and Only with Renee Zellweger will also be screened.
But despite the big names expected on the red carpet and the quality movies that will be on show the question of money hangs over the Berlin Film Festival as the economic crisis has meant that studios are tightening their belts and only movies that are expected to do well at the box office in several countries will be funded.
But Friday night kicks off the competition as Lille Soldat, which follows a soldier recently back from war, gets it's screening along with Ricky a French film.
The Berlin Film Festival runs until 15 February
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Berlin Film Festival