Berlinale opening film

At the beginning, a bear dies. Quite a surprising start for a festival crowned by golden and silver bears.

In the opening scene of "Nobody Wants the Night," a film by Spanish director Isabel Coixet, a polar bear is killed with two shots in the heart. A dark red trail of blood stains the snow. The scene is followed by two hours of struggle through icy landscapes, a bitterly cold drama portraying two women trying to survive in the vastness of the Arctic.

Did the Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick invite Coixet to open the festival because of this bear scene? Or could it rather be because a woman was sitting in the director's chair? The general absence of female directors at the Cannes Film Festival last year was harshly criticized. Current debates and studies all point to a well established fact: female directors are disadvantaged and underrepresented in the male-dominated film industry.

Strong women in extreme situations

A few days before the beginning of the Berlinale, Germany's Culture Minister Monika Grütters declared that this situation should change. It therefore can't be a coincidence that one the world's major film festivals opened with a woman's film. Until now, this had happened only once during the Berlin film festival, in 1995.

Isabel Coixet joked about her successful career as a filmmaker: "Maybe I have a penis," adding more seriously, "I am very stubborn." She has made several sacrifices in her life to achieve her goals and hopes the obstacles paving women's paths will one day be the same as men's.

Dieter Kosslick knows how to fulfill the public's expectations and pick up on trends. As he announced last week, this year's festival focuses on "strong women in extreme situations."

On the other hand, the director of the most important German film festival is often criticized for his selection of films which lack luster in the competition.

Once again this year's festival opened with a combination of both flair for trends and a low-profiled cinematic experience. The desolate Arctic landscapes in "Nobody Wants the Night" certainly contrast with the festive gala atmosphere of the festival's opening night.

The filmmaker launching this year's competition is no newcomer at the festival. Isabel Coixet, born in 1960, has already shown six of her films at the Berlinale.

The film relates an episode in the life of Josephine Peary, the wife of the famous Arctic explorer Robert Peary. He claimed to have reached the North Pole during an Arctic expedition - a feat which is still disputed by experts. What remains an absolute fact is that his wife Josephine Peary accompanied him on several expeditions. But Coixet's film doesn't cover one of the couple's excursions. Robert Peary does not even appear in "Nobody Wants the Night."

Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche plays Josephine Peary, who goes out on a quest to find her husband in 1908. At the beginning, she is accompanied by a grumpy expedition leader (played by Gabriel Byrne), who soon dies in an accident. Josephine ends up all alone in the inhospitable desert of Greenland's frozen tundra.The only person to break her solitude is a pregnant Inuit woman called Allaka (Rinko Kikuchi).

The story of two women

These two very different women and the relationship they develop make up the emotional and narrative framework of the film.

Josephine is portrayed as a proud and stubborn modern American woman who must recognize that her urban lifestyle is not adapted to Arctic conditions. She progressively realizes that she needs to follow Allaka's expert advice if she wants to survive.

After the press screening of her film, filmmaker Isabel Coixet wasn't eager to take up the gender debate. "Talk about gender? Do we have to? It's so boring," she sighed, noting that there are a lot more important things to discuss. Still, she added that more should be done to support women in film; concrete actions should replace repetitive discussions.

Not a favorite

With her film about the daring, if not particularly sympathetic Josephine Peary, the filmmaker set the tone to the festival, giving it a "female" prelude.

More than a quarter of the 441 films shown during the 65th Berlinale were directed by women, according to festival director Dieter Kosslick.

Hopefully, the following films will be more uplifting than "Nobody Wants the Night." The movie which opens with a dead bear probably won't pick up a Golden Bear at the end of the festival.