Berlin International Film Festival begins

BIFF is in it's 63rd year The 63rd annual Berlin International Film Festival, one of Europe's biggest film events, takes place at Potsdamer Platz in the heart of Berlin from the 7th February. The festival was founded in 1951 and has

,among others, competitions for features and shorts, with directors from all over the world taking part. In 2012, docu-feature 'Caesar Must Die', by the veteran Italian directorial duo Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, won the festival's Golden Bear prize. This year, French documentary filmmaker Claude Lanzmann is to be awarded the Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement, while director Wong Kar Wai will serve as jury president, joined by filmmakers Susanne Bier, Andreas Dresen and Shirin Neshat, and US actor-director Tim Robbins amongst jurors. Wong Kar Wai's 'The Grandmaster' will also open the festival, out of competition. The festival's retrospective strand is entitled 'The Weimar Touch: The International Influence of Weimar Cinema after 1933', and will highlight the diverse narrative forms and evolution of new styles from German emigrants.