The 63rd Berlin Film Festival starts on Thursday evening with the film The Grandmaster by Chinese director Wong Kar Wai. About 400 films can be seen until February 17. 19 of them compete for the Golden Bears. These include the films Promised Land by the American director Gus van Sant, Paradies: Hope by the Austrian Ulrich Seidl and An episode in the life of an iron picker by the Bosnian Danis Tanovic.