Eric Lavallée

Asian auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien will be honored at the 60th Locarno Film Festival with the Golden Leopard; the equivalent to the Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Tinsel town. The Taiwanese titan has depicted social changes in his native country with sometimes auto-bio pics. Organizers of the Swiss fest say the helmer is set to accept the honor at this year’s event, scheduled for August 1-11.

On February 8 the curtain will rise in Berlinale Palast for the 57th Berlin International Film Festival. Throughout the following ten days, the festival will show 373 films on some 50 cinema screens all over the city. At the growing European Film Market, the festival's business fair, more than 700 films will be presented to the industry. International guests, stars on the red carpet, packed theaters, hot debates, and wild parties - the Berlinale will play Berlin like no other event on the calendar does. Yet, it is a festival not only of the masses, but also of the many: of the many who in months of hard work organized the programme and provided the infrastructure, and of the many who are busy behind the scenes to keep the festival buzzing. Of course, it will again be a festival of stars, the ones we know and the ones to discover.

What do you get when you combine a critically acclaimed writer/director with one of the hottest properties to cross the Pacific in recent memory? A film that is set to 'Bloom' like the lilies of the leads native land. Adrien Brody and Rinko Kikuch (Babel), in her first role since getting a nod from the Academy as Best Supporting Actress for her role as “Chieko”, are tapped to lead in The Brother's Bloom an edgy crime drama set for a 2008 release.