Berlin Film Festival opens with focus on refugees

Hollywood will be out in force to kick off the Berlin film festival on Thursday, with Meryl Streep joining George Clooney and the Coen brothers for the event where Europe’s refugee crisis will also play a starring role.

The 11-day Berlinale will start with a gala screening of Hail, Caesar!, Joel and Ethan Coen’s tribute to Tinseltown’s 1950s golden age.

Hail, Caesar! which opened in the United States last week is screening out of competition at the festival. Streep, who is serving as this year’s jury president in judging 18 contenders from around the world, underlined the tough task ahead in picking one film above another. “It’s going to be difficult but it’s a necessary lift for one, because it makes all rise,” she said at the opening of the festival. As Europe endures the largest refugee influx since World War II, with 1.1 million asylum seekers arriving in Germany last year, the theme of migration will be omnipresent at the festival.

Italian documentary director Gianfranco Rosi, who picked up top honours in Venice three years ago, will enter the competition with Fire at Sea about Lampedusa, a Mediterranean island on the frontline of the crisis.