Berlin Film Festival 2014: The Grand Budapest Hotel opens festival

The Grand Budapest Hotel has opened this year’s Berlin Film Festival to rave reviews.

A notable absentee from Berlin is the late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died on Sunday of a suspected drug overdose.

Philip Seymour Hoffman had been due to attend the festival to promote his film God’s Pocket.

Instead, a screening of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Oscar-winning performance in the film Capote will be screened in tribute on Tuesday.

“He was one of the greatest actors we had in the world,” festival director Dieter Kosslick told the Reuters news agency.

Wes Anderson’s latest movie The Grand Budapest Hotel stars British actor Ralph Fiennes as the famous concierge Gustave H, who woos octogenarian blonde widows at an Alpine hotel. When one dies in mysterious circumstances and leaves him a valuable painting, it sets in motion a chain of murder and mayhem.

It co-stars an enviable line-up of actors including Anderson regulars Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, Saoirse Ronan, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Jude Law and Tom Wilkinson.

Wes Anderson is a European festival favorite. His last film, Moonrise Kingdom, opened the Cannes Film Festival in 2012 and earned him an Oscar nomination for best screenplay.

His previous films include The Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Royal Tenenbaums.

The eight-member jury, chaired by Brokeback Mountain producer James Schamus includes Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz and actress Greta Gerwig.

It will announce the winner of the prestigious Golden Bear and other prizes on February 15.

Other films screening out of competition include Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac and Calvary, a black comedy drama starring Brendan Gleeson and Chris O’Dowd.

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