Pink Panther II lends humour to Berlin festival lineup

The Berlin International Film Festival has announced 10 films forits lineup this February, including the international premiere of Pink Panther II, a comedy starring Steve Martin.

Harald Zwart, who helmed One Night at McCool's, is directing an updated version of the Pink Panther, the comic detective series made famous by Peter Sellers. It'sMartin's second run at the franchise.

In a plot similar to the 1964 film, Insp. Jacques Clouseau, the worst inspector in the French police, is investigating the death of a soccer coach by poisoned dart and the disappearance of a huge diamond.

Pink Panther II will screen out of competition, as will Stephen Daldry's The Reader, which has alreadyearned a Golden Globe nod for best picture.

Among the films in competition are Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's Mammoth, Greek director Theo Angelopoulos's The Dust of Time and The Messenger, the directoral debut by Oren Moverman, screenwriter for I'm Not There and The Man Who Fell to Earth.

"To date, many of the films we've chosen explore the globalized world and its impact on people's private lives," said festival director Dieter Kosslick.

"These works tell of meaningful encounters, resistance, as well as traumatic experiences. International crises are reflected in them, but also the hope that a better world is possible. And toward the end of the festival, the Pink Panther will save the world again with humour."

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TheBerlinale's opening film, previouslyannounced, is Tom Tykwer's globe-trotting action thriller The International.

Mammoth is an examination of the impact of globalization on a family, witha businessman, played by Gabriel Garcia Bernal, in Thailand, while his doctor wife (Michelle Williams) struggles to find time for her daughter, and their Filipina nanny misses her family back home.

The Dust of Time is the second film of a trilogy by Angelopoulos that follows the lives of two people who meet as children, then encounter each other again in different parts of the world.

The action in this film takes place in the former Soviet Union, Hungary, Italy and New York between 1953 and 1974.

Moverman's The Messenger stars Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson and Samantha Morton in the story of a man who faces an ethical dilemma when he gets involved with a soldier's widow.

Also having a world premiere in Berlin are:

• Alle Anderen by Maren Ade, the only German film programmed so far.
• Rage by Sally Potter, a comic murder mystery involving an accident on the fashion runway in New York.
• London River by Rachid Bouchareb, about two strangers who search for their children who went missing in the July 2005 attacks in London.
• The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller, about a woman whose serene life unravels when her husband insists on a move to a retirement home and has an affair with a younger woman.

Chen Kaige, the Chinese director who made Farewell My Concubine and The Promise, is back in Berlin with Mei Lanfang (Forever Enthralled), a biopic about a Chinese opera star.

The film stars Ziyi Zhang, who was nominated for BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards for her part in Memoirs of a Geisha.

The Berlinale is scheduled for Feb. 5-15.