Eastwood, Lopez dramas at Berlin film festival

(AFP)
Updated: 2007-01-16 14:32

Actress Jennifer Lopez arrives at the 64th annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills January 15, 2007. [Reuters]

BERLIN - Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Bordertown" starring Jennifer Lopez will be among top films showcased at the Berlin International Film Festival next month.

"Bordertown" will be in contention for a Golden Bear prize for best picture at the February 8-18 Berlinale while Eastwood's latest movie will screen out of competition.

Directed by Gregory Naza, "Bordertown" features Lopez as a journalist risking her life to cover a series of murders of Mexican women in Ciudad Juarez on the US-Mexican frontier.

"Letters from Iwo Jima" is the second film by Eastwood in a two-part series about the legendary 1945 battle on the Japanese island.

While "Flags of Our Fathers" told the story from the US perspective, "Letters" presents the Japanese soldiers' point of view.

The German-Austrian co-production "Die Faelscher" (The Counterfeiters) by Stefan Ruzowitzky tells the true story of a mass operation launched by the Nazis in which concentration camp prisoners were used to forge pound notes in a bid to undermine the British economy.

Another two French dramas have also been invited.

Jacques Rivette's "Ne touchez pas la hache" (Don't Touch the Axe) adapts a Balzac novella about a duchess who resists the advances of a passionate military officer.

Andre Techine's "Les Temoins" (The Witnesses) is set in the early 1980s and describes the havoc wrought by the first major outbreak of AIDS in Europe.

"The Walker" by this year's Berlinale jury president Paul Schrader will screen out of competition.

It stars Woody Harrelson as a Washington-based, high-priced escort in a thriller also featuring Kristin Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin and Willem Dafoe, who is also serving on this year's jury.

Italian director Saverio Costanzo will come to Berlin with "In Memoria di me" (In Memory of Myself) as a young man who joins a Jesuit monastery to escape the demands of modern life.

A Czech-Slovak co-production "Obsluhoval jsem anglickeho krale" (I Served the King of England), by veteran Czech director Jiri Menzel, retells two decades of European history from the point of view of a Prague waiter.

"We have succeeded in getting films by important directors of international cinema to come to Berlin," festival director Dieter Kosslick said in a statement.

Organizers announced last week that a biopic on the troubled life of France's beloved torch singer Edith Piaf would open the 57th Berlinale, which ranks among the top three film festivals in Europe.

Among other pictures already invited to the festival are Robert De Niro's "The Good Shepherd", "The Good German" starring George Clooney and "I'm A Cyborg But That's OK" by South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Wook.

And Oscar-winning Danish director Bille August will unveil "Goodbye Bafana", featuring Joseph Fiennes as a South African prison guard whose life is transformed when he meets Nelson Mandela.