'film festival' - tagged features

The Berlinale, Berlin’s annual film festival has again provided a feast of moving pictures this week. Along with the Venice film festival it’s considered one of the most important exposés for the movie world outside of Hollywood. This year, as in previous years, eyebrows have been raised at certain movies making it into the line-up. Some for being controversial, some for being not good enough. Film critic Brendan O’Shea has been at the festival all week and he was impressed by a brave film dealing with homosexuality in the Moslem community. 

And we now visit the Czech Republic, where an organisation that helps the blind staged an event at the Karlovy Vary film festival that has just come to a close. The aim was to bring visitors closer to the life of the visually impaired. 

There is so much picturesque mythology surrounding the Roma - or gypsy - people, that cinema seems to find it hard to treat the theme without being seduced into showing singing and dancing round the camp fire.... even when the director is "one of them" - like Tony Gatlif, who was born to Algerian and Spanish-gypsy parents. "Transylvania", which is Gatliff's second film centered on the Romanian Roma, was the closing piece at this year's Cannes film festival. Radio Romania International reports from the city of Cluj on the "Transylvania International Film Festival" where, naturally, Gatliffs new film featured prominently. 

This week's political debates in Europe have somehow taken second place to the real headline. Namely, the eagerly awaited world premiere of the Da Vinci Code at the Cannes film festival on Wednesday. Despite thumbs downs from critics no one doubts that it'll be a huge success. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown has sold more than 39 million copies. Some of the book's most dramatic scenes take place in London and there's so much interest in the various locations that the tour company, London Walks, is offering special Da Vinci Code Tours. Deutsche Welle reports from London.