Weighty styles, fest veterinarians fill choices

'Sexy Sadie' helmer Matthias Glasner explores family tensions inside a remote Norwegian town in 'Mercy.'Though he's endured lots of critique of his programming options recently, especially in the German press, Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick seems to possess made couple of major course changes using the festival's 62nd annual edition. Contrary, the amount of Berlin alumni within this year's typically serious-minded competition selection indicates a deliberate, otherwise defiant, reaffirmation from the talent Kosslick has introduced towards the festival over his 11-year tenure.Three Berlinale regulars will deliver a powerful showing for Germany on its home turf. Christian Petzold ("Yella," last year's "Dreileben: Beats Being Dead") is coming back with "Barbara," his latest collaboration with "Yella" thesp Nina Hoss Hendes-Christian Schmid ("Distant Lights," "Requiem," "Storm") is getting his domestic drama "Home for that Weekend" and Matthias Glasner ("Die Mediocren," "Sexy Sadie," "The FreedomInch) explores family tensions inside a remote Norwegian town in "Whim."The roster of non-Teuton alums competing for that Golden Bear is every bit imposing. Though also known recently for stirring debate at Cannes, Filipino helmer Brillante Mendoza (whose "Slingshot" opened in Berlinale's 2008 Forum section) will deliver among the fest's most buzzed-about records, "Captive," a kidnapping drama starring Isabelle Huppert. Italy's Taviani siblings ("The Lark Farm") come in attendance with "Caesar Must Die," focused on a Shakespeare production mounted by maximum-security prison inmates in Rome, while Benedik Fliegauf ("Forest") makes his competition debut with "Only the Wind," a free account inspired through the killings of Romani families within the helmer's native Hungary.Coming back towards the festival that honored him having a Golden Bear for 2006's "Tuya's Marriage," Wang Quanan is in competition with "Whitened Deer Plain," a 188-minute Chinese epic concerning the Cultural Revolution. From competition, Wang's fellow mainlander Zhang Yimou (a frequent Berlin customer with your films as "Hero," "A Lady, a Gun along with a Noodle Shop," "Hero" and 1987 Golden Bear champion "Red-colored Sorghum") will premiere his local B.O. smash "The Flowers of War," concerning the 1937-38 Nanjing massacre.Overall, it is a fairly bleak-sounding selection according to subject material alone. It's componen for that course for many festivals and definitely for Berlin, that has never shied from challenging its audience (easily the biggest associated with a fest, with nearly 400 films screening to roughly 500,000 participants) with harsh, confrontational and politically billed fare.Partially from aesthetic pride, partially because of the growing impossibility of rivaling Cannes and Venice for auteur prestige or Hollywood luster, Berlin has frequently secured its status around the commitment of challenging but rewarding work from lesser-known worldwide filmmakers, for example Maren Ade's "Everybody Else" or Ulrich Koehler's "Sleeping Sickness." This season it'll make an effort to keep that advertise with your competition debutantes as Ursula Meier ("Sister"), Miguel Gomes ("Tabu"), Frederic Videau ("Returning HomeInch), Antonio Chavarrias ("Childish Games"), mono-monikered Edwin ("Postcards In the Zoo") and Kim Nguyen ("War Witch").Nevertheless, Kosslick arranged a splashy begin with the festival's opening-evening selection, "Farewell, My Full," a French Revolution costume drama starring Diane Kruger as Marie Antoinette. Helmer Benoit Jacquot's pic is just one of two monarchy-designed historic dramas competing, both occur roughly exactly the same era another is Nikolaj Arcel's "A Royal Affair," the storyline of the small-town physician who rose to energy in 16th-century Denmark.A really different period piece, and among the fest's greatest-profile choices, is Billy Bob Thornton's "Jayne Mansfield's Vehicle," an account of two rival families occur late-sixties Alabama that unexpectedly happens to function as the sole American-directed entry competing. The U.S./Hollywood presence is more powerful within the festival's noncompeting strands, that will present tests of Steven Soderbergh's "Haywire," Jason Reitman's "Youthful Adult" and Angelina Jolie's "Within the Land of Bloodstream and Honey."As always, the Berlinale will function as a European platform for Oscar challengers which have already performed Stateside, though when it comes to critical and commercial reception, picking a "Very Noisy & Incredibly Close" and "The Iron Lady" reps a substantial recession from last year's sterling options, "True Grit" and "The King's Speech." For red-colored-carpet wattage alone, the festival's most popular ticket may be Taylor Lautner starrer "Bel Ami," Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod's adaptation of Guy p Maupassant's oft-shot novel.Striking less frivolous notes would be the numerous documentaries designed through the fest's sidebars. Past Berlin jury leader Werner Herzog will show "Dying Row," a four-part, 188-minute companion-piece to his recent "In to the Abyss" within the Berlinale Special section. Portraits of artists abound, from such world premieres as Kevin Macdonald's "Marley" and Klaartje Quirijns' "Anton Corbijn ThoroughlyInch to Sundance-preemed game titles including Matthew Akers' "Marina Abramovic the Artist ExistsInch and Alison Klayman's "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry."Roughly per month prior to the one-year anniversary of Japan's earthquake/tsunami disaster, the Forum will show three nonfiction efforts analyzing the fallout from the disaster: Shunji Iwai's "Buddies After 3.11," Toshi Fujiwara's "No Man's Zone" and Atsushi Funahashi's "Nuclear Nation." It is the kind of sober, topical programming that is appropriate for a festival clearly trying difficult to be studied seriously whether the standard lives as much as the promise, just the next ten days approximately will inform. Contact Justin Chang at justin.chang@variety.com