Wes Anderson's latest movie The Grand Budapest Hotel is causing festival buzz in Berlin.
Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel opens the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday (February 6, 2014) and is one of 20 selections vying for the competition's main award, the Golden Bear.
Owen Wilson [R] in Wes Anderson's 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'
Set at a European hotel in the 1920s, Anderson's latest effort stars Ralph Fiennes as legendary lothario and concierge Gustave H, while the director's regulars Bill Murray, Edward Norton and Owen Wilson also populate the cast.
Though the movie has ever chance of wooing the Berlin jury - which includes James Schamus, Greta Gerwig and Michael Gondry - Anderson told the Hollywood Reporter that he is no longer concerned with awards season, particularly the major Hollywood type.
"I don't even have an opinion about it anymore," he explained, "Every movie I've ever done was released in November or December until Moonrise Kingdom, which opened in May. It did better than any of my films had done in ages. It seemed like it helped that it didn't come out in the middle of all this stuff [awards contenders]. It didn't round up all kinds of prizes, so why not be released in May? And we weren't finished with Grand Budapest in time to come out last year. I would not have wanted to try to rush it out."
Edward Norton [L] and Ralph Fiennes [R] in Wes Anderson's 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'
Though The Grand Budapest Hotel is joined by big-hitters including George Clooney's The Monuments Men and Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac, neither are in competition for the main award.
Anderson's main competition comes in the form of Claudia Llosa's Aloft, who heads to Berlin having won the Golden Bear for The Milk of Sorrow in 2009. Her latest movie - and English-language debut - stars Cillian Murphy as a young man setting off into a frozen wilderness to try and find his mother, who abandoned him long before.
71, the debut feature movie from Yann Demange, follows a young British soldier is accidentally abandoned by his unit following a riot on the streets of Belfast. It stars Skins breakout actor Jack O'Connell (who will star in Angelina Jolie's Unbroken) and could be the one to beat. The winner of the Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear will be announced on Feb. 15, 2014.
Imagine a world without dogs. It hardly bears thinking about, but in this dystopian look...
While preparing to film 'The Grand Budapest Hotel', director Wes Anderson and company scouted for...
Wes Anderson's entertaining filmmaking style clicks beautifully into focus for this comical adventure. Films like...
The cast and crew of 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' discuss the story, the main characters'...
Gustave may be aloof and snobbish in many ways, but he's also extremely charming with...
Charismatic but somewhat aloof concierge at the Grand Budapest Hotel, Gustave H, is less than...
Gustave H is a charismatic and over-friendly concierge at the Grand Budapest Hotel whose conduct...
Gustave H is a flamboyant and largely charismatic concierge at the Grand Budapest Hotel whose...
Anderson's films definitely aren't to everyone's taste, with his quirky approach to direction, character and...