Scorsese, Polanski movies in Berlin film fest

The Berlin film festival has released its full slate of feature films, which includes newreleases from veteran directorssuch as Martin Scorsese, Zhang Yimouand Roman Polanski.

Organizers released their official program of 26 films, with 20 in competition for the Golden Bear prize.

Scorsese will debut his latest film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, the spooky thriller Shutter Island which examines the disappearance of an inmate at a mental institution.

Also unspooling during the Feb. 11-21 event is Polanski's The Ghost Writer, starring Pierce Brosnan as an ex-British prime minister writing his memoirs with a ghostwriter, portrayed by Ewan McGregor.

Polanskiis still under house arrest in Switzerland awaiting possible extradition to the U.S. on a 32-year-old sex charge.The directorworked on the film while in jail and at his chalet.

Other notable films on the roster include the latest offering from Danish helmer Thomas Vinterberg, whose last big hit was The Celebration in 1998 which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Vinterberg, whose four movies since Celebration have flopped, returns with Submarino about two brothers and a childhood tragedy that affected their lives.

Meanwhile, British stalwart Michael Winterbottom is featured with The Killer Inside Me, starring Casey Affleck, and China's Zhang Yimou screens his murder plot-gone-awry story, A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop.

Winterbottom's film stirred up controversy recently at its screening at theSundance film festivalin Utah. Based on a book by Jim Thompson about small town Texas sheriff and a series of murders, and also starring Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson, the film was lambasted for gratuitious violence.

American Noah Baumbach, who directed The Squid and The Whale and Margot at the Wedding, will unveil Greenberg with Ben Stiller and Howl, starring James Franco asAllen Ginsberg, has its European premiere.

Rohmer gets retrospective

The 60th Berlin International Film Festival launches with Apart Together by Wang Quan'an of China and closes with Yoji Yamada's About her Brother.

Yamada, who is marking his seventh appearance at the festival, will also be getting an honorary lifetime achievement prize at Berlin.

Some Canadian films being shown at the festival include:

• Out in that Deep Blue Sea by Kazik Radwanski (short).
• La belle visite by Jean-Francoise Caissy (documentary).
• This Way of Life by Thomas Burstyn, co-production with New Zealand (feature).

The festival is also recognizing the memory of French auteur Eric Rohmer, who diedin January at age 89. Pauline at the Beach, which captured a Silver Bear for Rohmer back in 1983, will be shown along with his other films, The Collector, A Winter's Tale and Triple Agent.

A special screening will be held at the city's Brandenberg Gate this year. The giant stone archwayis asymbol of Germany's separation and reunification.

It will host as the backdrop for a screening of the restored original version of Fritz Lang's 1927 classic, Metropolis.

This year's jury includes veteran filmmaker Werner Herzog and actress Renee Zellweger.