This year's Berlin International Film Festival, aka the 66th Berlinale, is poised to kick off this coming Thursday. With around 500,000 admissions each year, Berlin is considered the largest publicly attended festival in the world. It has the massive European Film Market happening in tandem, as well as the Talent Campus for up-and-coming filmmaking and critical stars. And this year's iteration features Meryl Streep as President of the Jury and will showcase hundreds of feature films across its many sidebars, subsections and segments.
Despite all that, Berlin's profile remains somewhat lower than the glamor-puss Euro festivals of Cannes and Venice, which is refreshing for attendees who rarely have to negotiate awkward Red Carpet traffic systems, and probably won't get turned away from screenings based on footwear. But it can make it feel a little like the dowdy sibling of the family, an impression not ameliorated by this year's lineup boasting fewer big-name auteurs than last...
