What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 17th February 2022.

The 72nd Berlin International Film Festival (aka Berlinale) is currently up and running from the 10th through until 20th February. The official website reads 'the Berlinale is a unique place of artistic exploration and entertainment. It is one of the largest public film festivals in the world, attracting tens of thousands of visitors from around the globe each year. For the film industry and the media, the eleven days in February are also one of the most important events in the annual calendar and an indispensable trading forum. The Berlin International Film Festival was created for the Berlin public in 1951, at the beginning of the Cold War, as a 'showcase of the free world'. Shaped by the turbulent post-war period and the unique situation of a divided city, the Berlinale has developed into a place of intercultural exchange and a platform for the critical cinematic exploration of social issues. To this day it is considered the most political of all the major film festivals. The festival brings the big stars of international cinema to Berlin and discovers new talents. It accompanies filmmakers of all disciplines on their paths into the spotlight and supports careers, projects, dreams and visions'.

'Every year, around 400 films of all genres, lengths and formats are shown in the various sections and special presentations of the Berlinale. Across the spectrum from feature films to documentary forms and artistic experiments, the audience is invited to encounter highly contrasting milieus, ways of life and attitudes, to put their own judgements and prejudices to the test and to reinvigorate their experience of seeing and perceiving in the realm between classic narrative forms and extraordinary aesthetics'.

The international jury, which this year is headed up by acclaimed Director, Screenwriter and Producer M. Night Shyamalan presides over the official competition, which will be announced at 7:00pm local time, on Wednesday 16th February. The following awards are presented :-

* Golden Bear for Best Film (awarded to the film’s Producers)
* Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
* Silver Bear Jury Prize
* Silver Bear for Best Director
* Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance
* Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance
* Silver Bear for Best Screenplay
* Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution.

Additionally, a whole bunch of other awards are bestowed in the following sections, 'Encounters', 'Berlinale Shorts', 'Generation Kplus' and 'Generation 14plus', 'Best First Feature Award', 'Berlinale Documentary' and the 'Honorary Golden Bear' award which this year is dedicated to French film and stage actor Isabelle Huppert, for lifetime achievement.

Watch out for next weeks Blog post in which I'll detail all the winners, grinners and also rans in main competition at the 72nd Berlinale. In the meantime, you can visit the official website, for all the news, programme information and a whole lot more at : https://www.berlinale.de/

Turning back to this weeks four new release movies coming to an Odeon close to you this week, we kick off with an action adventure offering about a street-smart thief who is recruited by seasoned treasure hunter to recover a fortune amassed by Ferdinand Magellan and lost five hundred years ago by the House of Moncada. This is followed by a drama film about a radio journalist who forges an unexpected bond with his precocious young nephew during a cross country trip. Next up is a Bosnian film about a teacher and translator for the UN in the small town of Srebrenica, and when the Serbian army takes over the town, her family is among the thousands of citizens looking for shelter in the UN camp, before closing out the week with a highly acclaimed Danish animated feature about a successful academic in Denmark who is about to marry his long-time boyfriend, and who is confronted with a secret from his past.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the four latest release new films as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release or as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the coming week.

'UNCHARTED' (Rated M) - this American action adventure film is Directed by Ruben Fleischer, whose previous film making credits include his big screen debut in 2009 with 'Zombieland', then 2013's 'Gangster Squad', 'Venom' in 2018 and 'Zombieland : Double Tap' in 2019. The film based on the video game series of the same name and had its Premier in Barcelona, Spain on 7th February, and was released in the UK last week and both here in Australia and the US this week. It has received mixed reviews from Critics and cost US$120M to produce. 

Here, street-smart thief Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) is recruited by seasoned treasure hunter Victor 'Sully' Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) to recover a fortune lost by Ferdinand Magellan some five hundred years ago. What starts as a heist job for the duo becomes a globe-trotting, white-knuckle race to reach the prize before the ruthless Moncada (Antonio Banderas) does, who believes he and his family are the rightful heirs. If Nate and Sully can decipher the clues and solve one of the world's oldest mysteries, they stand to find US$5B in treasure and perhaps even Nate's long-lost brother Sam (Rudy Pankow) - but only if they can learn to work together.

'C'MON C'MON' (Rated M) - is a black and white drama film Written and Directed by Mike Mills in his fourth feature film outing following his 2005 debut with 'Thumbsucker' then 'Beginners' in 2010, and '20th Century Women' in 2016. The film had its World Premiere at the Telluride Film Festival in early September last year and was released in limited theatres in mid- November in the US. Having garnered widespread critical acclaim, and won twelve awards so far plus another forty-eight nominations, it has so far recovered US$2M fro its US$8.3M production budget. When his sister Viv (Gaby Hoffmann) asks him to look after her son, radio journalist Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) embarks on a cross-country trip with his energetic nephew Jesse (Woody Norman) to show him life away from Los Angeles, while Viv goes to Oakland to care for her estranged husband Paul (Scoot McNairy) struggling with mental illness.

'QUO VADIS, AIDA?' (Rated M) - translated literally means 'Where Are You Going, Aida?' is a Bosnian film Directed, Written and Co-Produced by Jasmila Zbanic. An international co-production of twelve production companies, the film was shown in the main competition section of the Venice International Film Festival in September 2020, and was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 2021 Academy Awards and all up has garnered twenty-nine award wins and another thirty-four nominations from around the awards and festival circuit. The film dramatises the events of the Srebrenica massacre, during which Serbian troops sent Bosniak men and boys to death in July 1995 led by Serbian convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic. The film exposes the events through the eyes of a mother named Aida Selmanagic (Jasna Duricic), a schoolteacher who works with the United Nations as a translator. After three and a half years under siege, the town of Srebrenica, close to the northeastern Serbian border, was declared a UN safety zone in 1993 and put under the protection of a Dutch battalion working for the UN. 

'FLEE' (Rated M) - is a Danish animated docudrama film Directed and Co-Written by Jonas Poher Rasmussen whose previous documentary offerings include 'Searching for Bill' in 2012 and 'What He Did' in 2015. The film saw its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in late January 2021 and was released in the US in early December last year. It has received universal unanimous acclaim from film festivals and critics, with much praise bestowed upon it for animation, story, thematic content, subject matter, and LGBT representation; has garnered numerous awards, mainly for animated and documentary categories, all up so far winning sixty-five awards with a further 124 nominations (many of which are still pending an outcome at the time of writing). The film tells the extraordinary true story of Amin Nawabi, who, on the verge of marrying his husband, shares his story for the first time about his hidden past fleeing his home country of Afghanistan to Denmark as a refugee. Riz Ahmed and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau serve as Executive Producers on the film. With a budget of US$3.4M to produce, 'Flee' has so far recouped just US$232K. 

With four new release movie offerings this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere at your local Odeon in the coming week.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-