Berlin film festival: Movies vying for Golden Bear

The 69th Berlinale, Europe’s first major film festival of the year, awards its Golden and Silver Bear top prizes on Saturday with 16 movies from around the world competing.

A six-member jury led by French Oscar winner Juliette Binoche will hand out the trophies at a gala ceremony in the German capital.

The competition originally had 17 entries but ‘Yi miao zhong’ (One Second) by veteran Chinese director Zhang Yimou was pulled from the festival on Monday, reportedly due to problems with official censors.

A record seven of the movies vying for awards were made by women directors.

Here are the their titles, directors and production countries.

‘Der Boden unter den Fuessen’ (The Ground Beneath My Feet), Marie Kreutzer, Austria

‘Di jiu tian chang’ (So Long, My Son), Wang Xiaoshuai, China

‘Elisa y Marcela’ (Elisa and Marcela), Isabel Coixet, Spain

‘Der Goldene Handschuh’ (The Golden Glove), Fatih Akin, Germany/France

‘Gospod postoi, imeto i’ e Petrunija’ (God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya), Teona Strugar Mitevska, North Macedonia/Belgium/Slovenia/Croatia/France

‘Grace a Dieu’ (By the Grace of God), Francois Ozon, France

‘Ich war zuhause, aber’ (I Was at Home, But), Angela Schanelec, Germany/Serbia

‘The Kindness of Strangers’, Lone Scherfig and starring Zoe Kazan, Tahar Rahim, Andrea Riseborough and Bill Nighy, Denmark/Canada/Sweden/Germany/France

‘Kiz Kardesler’ (A Tale of Three Sisters), Emin Alper, Turkey/Germany/Netherlands/Greece

‘Mr Jones’, Agnieszka Holland and starring James Norton and Peter Sarsgaard, Poland/Britain/Ukraine

‘Ondog’, Wang Quan’an, Mongolia

‘La paranza dei bambini’ (Piranhas), Claudio Giovannesi, Italy

‘Repertoire des villes disparues’ (Ghost Town Anthology), Denis Cote, Canada

‘Synonymes’ (Synonyms), Nadav Lapid, France/Israel/Germany

‘Systemsprenger’ (System Crasher), Nora Fingscheidt, Germany

‘Ut og staeler hester’ (Out Stealing Horses), Hans Petter Moland and starring Stellan Skarsgard, Norway/Sweden/Denmark