Berlinale, it's a wrap | Bangkok Post: Arts & Culture

In Berlin last weekend, Roman inmates performed Shakespeare and won the Golden Bear, the year's first major prize in world cinema handed out at Europe's premiere film festival. Decking the sidebar awards were a Hungarian movie about violence against gypsies, a poignant East-West German drama, a rapturously eccentric Portuguese black-and-white film, while the only Asian title to score was a Chinese epic set during the last days of imperial rule. It was the usual distribution of honours to cover every base by the jury led by Mike Leigh (and including Jake Gyllenhaal and Charlotte Gainsbourg).

Barbara

Known as the Berlinale, the Berlin festival is a huge, city-wide affair of over 400 movies, and the only major film festival in Europe that caters to a general audience instead of just to professionals. Long lines at ticket booths were a usual sight from the very first day of the event, which took place mostly around Potsdamer Platz, and altogether over 300,000 tickets were sold to the public over 10 days. International critics and industry people still regard Berlin as a significant cog in the wheel of world cinema _ both as culture and as commerce _ but it's audience enthusiasm that generates a whirring atmosphere to the festival whose selection and taste have often been questioned (sometimes unfairly, sometimes not).