Actress Audrey Tautou, ‘Mad Men’ creator Matthew Weiner among jury for Berlin Film Festival

BERLIN – “Amelie” actress Audrey Tautou and “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner are among the seven jury members for this year’s Berlin Film Festival, which will be led by director Darren Aronofsky, organizers said Tuesday.

“Rush” actor Daniel Bruhl, “The Host” director Bong Joon-ho, “Hannibal” producer Martha De Laurentiis and Claudia Llosa, the director of “The Milk of Sorrow,” will also be among those deciding who gets the 65th Berlinale’s Golden Bear and Silver Bear awards, said festival boss Dieter Kosslick.

The Berlin festival is the first of the year’s major European film festivals. It lacks the glamor of Cannes or Venice, but often gives space to a more international bill reflected in last year’s top prize going to Chinese director Diao Yinan’s “Black Coal, Thin Ice.”

Among the world premieres this year are Terrence Malick’s drama “Knight of Cups” — starring Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Natalie Portman — and British director Peter Greenaway’s new movie “Eisenstein in Guanajuato” about the legendary Soviet film maker’s journey to Mexico.

The festival opens Feb. 5 with “Nobody Wants the Night,” featuring Juliette Binoche as Arctic explorer Robert Peary’s wife Josephine trying to reach her husband by trekking through the vast icy emptiness of Greenland in 1908.

The competition also includes German director Werner Herzog’s film “Queen of the Desert” with Nicole Kidman as Gertrude Bell, the British writer and spy who helped redraw the map of the Middle East; and Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s latest film “Taxi” in which the driver interviews his customers during their ride through the capital Tehran.

Panahi, who was banned by Iran’s authorities from travelling to be on the Berlinale jury four years ago, has a standing invitation in Berlin, said Kosslick.

“I’ll keep inviting Panahi until he can come,” he said.

Seventy years after the end of World War II, the festival also features a film by “Downfall”-director Oliver Hirschbiegel about the man who tried to kill Adolf Hitler.

In total, the festival features 441 films and runs until Feb. 15.