Berlin - An action thriller about the often dark and crooked world of global banking opened the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday.
German director Tom Tykwer's The International stars Clive Owen as an Interpol agent, Louis Salinger, and Naomi Watts as a New York attorney, Eleanor Whitman who try expose the world's biggest bank's murky business in financing wars and terror.
'Anyone who has moved against this bank has ended up dead', warns Louis as he and Eleanor embark on a journey to try to track down the flow of funds in a high risk-filled chase around the world.
Louis, Owen told the press conference, travelled 'the whole world in pursuit of this bank and trying to bring them down.'
The International draws on the story of big global banks that have been caught over the years dabbling in dubious deals and loosely follows the scandal surrounding the 1990's collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).
Neverthless, Tykwer's movie seems to resonate with the current crisis gripping the world economy, which was triggered by upheaval in the banking business.
But speaking at a press conference in Berlin, Tykwer said his film, which had his world premiere in Berlin, was not about the global banking crisis.
'The subject of the film is a system and a principle on which our form of society has been built,' he said.
Coming in the midst of a bleak Berlin winter, the 10-day festival provides a touch of glamour and glitz to the German capital with the 59th Berlinale rolling out the red carpet for a slew of world stars.
This includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Demi Moore, Renee Zellweger, Kate Winslett, Steve Martin, Keanu Reeves and Gael Garcia Bernal.
Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio is also expected to be town next week for the Cinema for Peace, which is held as a parallel event to the Berlinale. The Cinema for Peace seeks to promote the cause of peace in the international film business.
Of the 26 films selected to be shown in the festival's main lineup, 17 are world premieres and include productions from China, Britain, Iran, Poland, Uruguay and the United States.
A seven-member international jury headed up by Academy Award- winning British actress Tilda Swinton will decide who takes home the Berlinale's prestigious prizes, including its coveted Golden Bear. The Golden Bear winner is to be selected from a field of 18 films.
Among the films in the race for the Golden Bear is British director Stephen Frears' Cheri as well as Darbareye Elly (About Elly) from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi and Chinese director Chen Kaige's Forever Enthralled about a famous Peking opera star during the first part of the last century.
This year's competition line-up also includes Paris-born director Francois Ozon's Ricky about an extraordinary child and veteran Polish director Andrzej Wajda's latest film Tatarak (Sweet Rush) which tells the story of an ageing doctor, whose life is turned upside down when she meets a younger man.
More than 6,000 films were submitted to this year's Berlinale, which is one of the world's top three film festivals.
This year's Berlinale is also been held at the start of the year marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of communism across Central Europe.
As a result, the Berlinale also includes a series of movies touching on the years surrounding the end of the Soviet empire.
But then, the Berlinale is often the most political of the world's top movie festivals.
Paris-born director Rachid Bouchareb's London River tells the tale of two people in London trying to find their children who go missing after the London terrorist bombings in July 2005.
The Berlinale also seeks to portray the impact of the Iraq war on the home front and the human costs of the war.
Among the movies are Israeli-born Oren Moverman's The Messenger starring Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson, about the army representatives assigned to visit families to inform them that their relatives have died in combat.
German director Hans-Christian Schmid's Storm delves into the aftermath of the war in former Yugoslavia.
However, the festival program also includes some light-hearted moments such as British-born Richard Loncraine's My One and Only.
Set in the 1950s and starring Renee Zellweger and Kevin Bacon, Loncraine's film is a comedy about a young woman's attempts to find a wealthy man to finance a new life for herself and her sons.
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