Terrence Malick’s latest film, Knight of Cups, is set to receive its world premiere as part of the competition at the 2015 Berlin film festival, it has been announced.
As is customary for Malick productions, little is known about Knight of Cups other than its principal cast – Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Natalie Portman – and an “official” still released in May 2013. The only suggestion as to its content is that it is about “celebrities and excess” and it is due for release at some point in 2015.
Six other films were announced at the same time: the most high profile is the Kenneth Branagh-directed Cinderella, which will screen out of competition as an international premiere. Starring Lily James, Helena Bonham Carter and Blanchett, the film is described as a live-action reworking of the classic fairytale.
However, going up against Malick is British film-maker Andrew Haigh, who scored an unexpected success with the low-budget Weekend in 2011. His follow-up, 45 Years, stars Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay as a married couple whose relationship is tested, on the eve of their 45th anniversary, when the husband’s lover is found frozen in ice in the Swiss mountains. Haigh is joined in competition by eternal British maverick Peter Greenway, whose latest film, Eisenstein in Guanajuato, is a study of Russian master director Sergei Eisenstein’s trip to Mexico in 1931 for the never-completed Que Viva México! project.
Also screening in competition are Andreas Dresen’s As We Were Dreaming, Ixcanul Volcano, from Guatemala’s Jayro Bustamante, and Under Electric Clouds, directed by Alexey German. The Berlin film festival runs from 5-15 February 2015.
