film Festival
M. Night Shyamalan becomes the jury president of the Berlinale
Director M. Night Shyamalan will be the jury president of the next Berlinale. Photo: Antonio Calanni / AP / dpa
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Alongside Cannes and Venice, the Berlinale is one of the major film festivals. The next edition is planned for February 10-20, 2022 – then again as a face-to-face event.
Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense”, “Glass”) will be the jury president of the next Berlinale. The 51-year-old will head the international jury in 2022, as the Berlin Film Festival announced on Tuesday.
The American director, who was born in India, has been captivating audiences around the world with his genre films for three decades. The international jury decides on the winners, for example who will receive the Golden Bear for the best film.
The festival management praised the screenwriter, director and producer M. Night Shyamalan as one of the most renowned names in the film industry. With his films he has created a universe “in which fears and longings are closely related, and young people are not only the main characters but also the driving forces to overcome fears”.
He was “a unique figure” in the US film business, said the artistic festival director Carlo Chatrian. In addition to the psychological thriller “The Sixth Sense” starring Bruce Willis, he shot “Unbreakable – Unzerbrechlich”, “Signs” and “The Village”. With the horror film “The Visit” he decided to finance his films himself from now on in order to realize his artistic visions.
The international jury includes several people from the film industry. In 2020 actor Jeremy Irons took over the chairmanship. This year there was no jury president. Instead, the panel was made up of several filmmakers whose films themselves had already won Golden Bears.