Berlinale Film Festival

  I recently travelled to Berlin, for the Berlin Film Festival. It was a University organised trip, although some people decided to book separately. I wanted to go through Uni as they were organising trips to different locations, one of which being the Babelsberg Film Studio, located just outside the city.

  On the first day we went on a tour of Berlin, which I found the most interesting part of the whole trip. The tour guide was very good, and it was her last day working as a tour guide after being there for four years. She is currently writing a book about the History of Berlin. We was popular buildings and attractions such as the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate, but also to other interesting places such as the Jewish Memorial, and Hitlers Bunker (we could not get into the bunker but she showed us where is was).

  The trip to Babelsberg was very interesting. Recent films such as Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds and Wes Anderson's Grand Budafest Hotel were filmed at these studios, so I was very exited to see how it all works. The tour started by being given a brief history on the studio's, as they were around at the same time as Hitler, and then we were shown the large studio spaces, where they build all of the sets, and finally we were shown the props and costumes building, which was the most interesting part, as they had the largest set of props in the world, thus winning a Guinness world record for the collection.

  After visiting Babelsberg Studios, we went straight to the box office to get tickets for a French Comedy film called Dans La Cour - translation 'In the Courtyard. This was a premier, so their was a red carpet, and the cast and crew were there. I had never been to a premier of this calibre so it was an exiting experience. I did not know what to expect from the film as I had never heard of it, or any of the crew, but I was pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed the film, it was hilarious, forcing me to laugh out loud, which is really difficult to do with a foreign language film. I will be sure to watch it again once it is released onto DVD. Unluckily, this was the only film I got to see whilst I was in Berlin as we were only there for two days, but the experience was fantastic and I look forward to going to Berlin again in the near future, hopefully next time for a little longer.