Berlin film festival throws spotlight on Asian cinema

Films from Asian directors will bookend this year's Berlin film festival, organisers announced today. Chinese director and previous Golden Bear winner Wang Quan'an will open the 60th edition with the world premiere of his new film Apart Together on 11 February, while 78-year-old Yoji Yamada will close proceedings on 20 February with his About Her Brother, the Osaka-born director's 81st film. Apart Together, which will screen in competition, is a period drama about a soldier who is reunited with the love of his life decades after fleeing the forces of Chairman Mao for Taiwan in 1949. The director, part of China's sixth generation of film-makers, previously won in 2007 for Tuya's Marriage, about a woman from the Mongolian grasslands who divorces her disabled husband in the hope of finding an able-bodied partner prepared to look after herself, her children, and her former spouse. Yamada, whose new family drama screens out of competition, is best known in Japan for his long running series of Tora-san films, about a kind-hearted vagabond who is always unlucky in love. His period feature The Twilight Samurai was nominated for the best foreign language film Oscar in 2004. In total, 26 films will compete for this year's Golden Bear. The most high profile entry is undoubtedly the latest movie from the Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski, currently under house arrest in Switzerland awaiting possible extradition to the US. The Ghost Writer , based on the Robert Harris novel The Ghost, stars Ewan McGregor as a journalist who uncovers a conspiracy while helping a former British prime minister, played by Pierce Brosnan, to compile his memoirs. Both actors are expected in Berlin, as is Leonardo DiCaprio, who stars in Martin Scorsese's new thriller Shutter Island, which is screening out of competition.