BERLIN FILM FEST OPENS

THE Berlinale, Europe’s first major international film festival of the year, kicked off as a live event on Thursday with Germany facing record daily coronavirus infections. Organisers of the event, which started in 1951 as a Cold War culture showcase for a divided Berlin, said a raft of precautions would help keep audiences safe. The festival opened with Peter von Kant, a gender-flipped adaptation of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. It is among 18 contenders for the Golden and Silver Bear top prizes on February 16.