US actor and director Sean Penn will premiere a documentary about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine starring President Volodymyr Zelensky at next month’s Berlin film festival, organizers said on Monday.
The 73rd edition of the Berlinale, which will take place from February 16 to 26, will this time focus on the war in Ukraine, whose invasion by Russia began on February 24, 2022.
‘Superpower’, heralded as ‘the chronicle of a project that reality has turned into something less controllable but more significant’, will be the biggest Ukrainian film screened at the festival.
Sean Penn was in Kyiv to make a documentary in late February 2022 when the Russian invasion began.
Courage
The actor with two Oscars -for harvey milk Y Mystical river – was photographed at a press conference of the Ukrainian government in Kyiv. We also saw him with Volodymyr Zelensky in a video posted on the Ukrainian president’s Instagram account.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s services had claimed that the American artist displayed courage “which is lacking in many others, particularly Western politicians.”
Sean Penn filmed the documentary for Vice Studios with American director Aaron Kaufman.
The 62-year-old has caused controversy in the past due to his involvement in politics or current affairs, including after his interview with Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán while he was on the run.
Last November, Sean Penn saw Volodomyr Zelensky again to present him with one of his Oscars. “When you win, bring it back to Malibu,” he told her, handing her the item.
Ukrainian film industry
The first major film event of the year in Europe, the Berlinale, will highlight several documentaries and feature films by Ukrainian directors, as well as works by dissident Iranian filmmakers, as a sign of “solidarity”, said Italian Carlo Chatrian, co-director of the festival.
It will also provide free exhibition space to representatives of the Ukrainian film industry during the festival’s extensive European Film Market, and highlight co-production opportunities with struggling Ukrainian directors.
Opening the Festival, an American romantic comedy, she came to mestarring one of the main actors of game of ThronesPeter Dinklage, the American Marisa Tomei, seen in particular in several films of the Marvel universe, as well as the French Tahar Rahim and the American Anne Hathaway.
It will be chaired by the American actress, screenwriter and director Kristen Stewart, and should receive Steven Spielberg as a guest of honor.
French films in competition include in the Adamant by Nicolas Philibert, documentary makerto be, to be and to havethat on this occasion is immersed in the world of psychiatry, and the big car by Philippe Garrell.
Source: BFM TV
