Today was the German premiere of Green Lantern at CineStar Sony Center in Berlin. The director Martin Campbell itself together with actors Ryan Reynolds and Peter Sarsgaard were part of today’s special guests. Thousands of fans have gathered, at the central forum of the Sony Center, to get an autograph or to take a picture of their beloved idol.
Berlinale 2011 is over. During the last week 18 young photographers received the opportunity to experience working as professional photojournalists to show us this years Berlinale through their eyes, or should I say, through their cameras?
All the works were gathered at the C/O Berlin gallery and Dieter Kosslick himself opened the exhibition “Close Up!”.
The City of Berlin has placed a 14 meters high and 53 meters wide Hollywood Sign in the middle of the Tiergarten between the Brandenburg Gate and the Potsdamer Platz.
The Holly- wait.. there is only one L? Oh boy, something went terribly wrong…
Just kidding, the Holywood Sign is a creation by the artist and filmmaker Ralf Schmerberg and part of a Climate Protection campaign, to plant 10.000 new trees all across the City.
So from now on, it’s “Welcome to HolyWood”.
Finally I had some time to visit this years Berlinale at Potsdamer Platz and lucky me got some shots of Helena Bonham Carter as she left the Hyatt Hotel near the Berlinale Palace to promote the new movie “The King’s Speech”.
Helena is well known for her role as Bellatrix Lestrange in Joan K Rowlings Harry Potter or on the Side of Johnny Depp as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd.
I watched the second Anime during this years Berlinale, the world premiere of Welcome to the Space Show or Uchuu Show e Youkoso / 宇宙ショーへようこ if you are more familiar with the Japanese title.
A tiny mountain village in a remote woodland region. Five primary school kids have come together in this idyllic spot in order to spend their summer holidays at a camp. At first the children enjoy carefree days amidst unspoiled nature far away from adult supervision. But their life changes dramatically when they come across what they believe to be a small dog, badly in need of help.
The creature turns out not to be a dog at all but an alien on an important mission. It seems there is a mysterious substance on earth that is coveted throughout the universe.
The movie was produced by the same guys who brought you R.O.D -Read or Die-, Ishihama Masashi Masunari Kouji, Hideyuki Kurata and Tomonori Ochikoshi, all of them were parts of the audience.
There was only one thing I found a bit disturbing, I watched the movie in three languages, Japanese language, English subtitle and… a German translator for every single sentence and also totally emotionless.
But overall It was a really great movie with an interesting science-fiction story and cute characters.
So I watched Summer Wars today at an official cinema of the Berlinale 2010. It’s the DVD premiere in Germany and the movie was shown two weeks earlier, of course in Japanese language with English subs.
The movie was about a boy called Kenji, a computer technician for a virtual world called Oz (a massive social network in which everything is connected with the real world) who was invited by the most popular girl at his high school to her expansive family’s home for a summer job.
During their trip, the world of Oz became infected by a virus, Kenji’s Account got hacked and so the chaos begun.
Hosoda Mamoru, the producer himself, was one of today’s guests and at the end, he answered a couple of questions about the movie which I can’t tell you without spoiling you the story. The only thing I can tell you is that he got his inspiration from his own family… oh yes and that he loves Germany.
Seems like this year’s Berlinale is pretty popular, people standing in line for about an hour to get a ticket for their favorite movie or a chance to meet one of the many stars who came to Berlin to present their newest creations.
The Berlinale in Berlin has begun, artists from around the world came to Berlin, to present their newest creations. Up to 400 films are shown every year, more than 19,000 film professionals from 136 countries, including about 4,000 journalists, are accredited for the Berlin International Film Festival every year.
The Berlin International Film Festival sees itself as a showcase for what is happening in cinema, but also as an actor and propagator on the international film circuit.