Eye For Film >> Festivals >> BIFF >> 2009 >> Retrospective: 70mm - Bigger Than Life

The 2009 retrospective will feature 22 films and aims to celebrate "the powerful visuals of wide-gauge film".

The festival says: "Twice as wide as standard 35-mm film, it is the adequate format for monumental works: screen epics, adventure and science fiction films, Westerns, musicals, as well as magnificent panoramas of nature and intimately beautiful close-ups. The high resolution, sharp picture and colour quality of these large-format images join forces with the tremendous excellence of the sound. During Hollywood’s financial crisis in the mid 1950s, 70-mm film was especially important as a technical innovation with which television could not compete. For wide-gauge film, with its visual and audio brilliance, is only able to come into its own in the cinema. The Berlinale Retrospective will concentrate on "real" 70-mm films that were originally shot on 65-mm or 70-mm negative film and then printed on 70-mm film for the screen."

View other Berlin International Film Festival Films by strand: Berlinale Shorts, Berlinale Special, Competition, Generation, German Cinema, International Forum of New Cinema, Out Of Competition, Panorama, Perspektive Deutches Kino

Cleopatra and 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey (2001) (Country: UK, US; Year: 1968; Director: Stanley Kubrick; Writer: Stanley Kubrick. Based on the book by Arthur C Clarke; Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, Douglas Rain)

Kubrick and Clarke's quest to the stars.

Full Review

Shown in Super Panavision 70

Baraka (Country: US; Year: 1992; Director: Ron Fricke; Writer: Constantine Nicholas, Genevieve Nicholas)

A journey of rediscovery across the world.

Full Review

Shown in Todd-AO

Ben-Hur (Country: USA; Year: 1959; Director: William Wyler; Writer: Lew Wallace, Karl Tunberg, Maxwell Anderson, Christopher Fry, Gore Vidal; Stars: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott, Cathy O'Donnell, Sam Jaffe, Finlay Currie, Frank Thring)

Swords and sandals epic.

Shown in Camera 65

Cleopatra (Country: UK, US, Switzerland; Year: 1963; Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz, Rouben Mamoulian, Darryl F. Zanuck; Writer: Joseph L Mankiewicz, Ranald MacDougall, Sidney Buchman, Plutarch, Suetonius, Appian, Carlo Mario Franzero, Ben Hecht; Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Pamela Brown, George Cole, Hume Cronyn, Cesare Danova, Kenneth Haigh, Andrew Keir, Martin Landau)

An epic based on the life of the legendary queen.

Full Review

Shown in Super Panavision 70

Cheyenne Autumn (Country: USA; Year: 1964; Director: John Ford; Writer: Mari Sandoz, James R. Webb, Howard Fast; Stars: Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, Sal Mineo, Dolores del Rio, Ricardo Montalban, Gilbert Roland, Arthur Kennedy, Patrick Wayne, Elizabeth Allen)

West Side Story and Baraka

Dnevnye zvyozdy (The Stars of the Day) (Country: Soviet Union; Year: 1968; Director: Igor Talankin; Writer: Olga Berggolts, Igor Talankin; Stars: Alla Demidova, Andrei Popov, Konstantin Baranov, Tatyana Lennikova, Aleksandra Malysheva, Yelena Borisova, Ivan Ufimtsev, Anatoli Ignatyev, V. Demidovsky, Yuri Leonidov)

Flying Clipper - Traumreise unter weissen Segeln (Country: West Germany; Year: 1962; Director: Hermann Leitner, Rudolf Nussgruber; Writer: Hans D. Bove, Arthur Elliott, Karl Hartl, Gerd Nickstadt; Stars: Hans Clarin, Burl Ives)

Goya (Goya - oder Der arge Weg der Erkenntnis) (Country: East Germany, Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland; Year: 1971; Director: Konrad Wolf; Writer: Lion Feuchtwanger, Angel Vagenshtain; Stars: Donatas Banionis, Olivera Katarina, Fred Düren, Tatyana Lolova, Rolf Hoppe, Mieczyslaw Voit, Mikhail Kozakov, Arno Wyzniewski, Lyudmila Chursina, Veriko Andjaparidze)

Biopic of the painter.

Shown in DEFA 70

Hello, Dolly! (Country: US; Year: 1969; Director: Gene Kelly; Writer: Ernest Lehman, Johann Nestroy, Michael Stewart, Thornton Wilder; Stars: Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau, Michael Crawford, Marianne McAndrew, Danny Lockin, E.J. Peaker, Joyce Ames, Tommy Tune, Judy Knaiz, David Hurst)

A window who works as a matchmaker finds herself falling in love with a wealthy client and determines to win him for herself.

Shown in Todd-AO

Khartoum (Country: UK; Year: 1966; Director: Basil Dearden, Eliot Elisofon; Writer: Robert Ardrey; Stars: Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier, Richard Johnson, Ralph Richardson, Alexander Knox, Johnny Sekka, Michael Hordern, Zia Mohyeddin, Marne Maitland, Nigel Green)

Playtime and Lawrence Of Arabia

Lawrence Of Arabia (Country: UK; Year: 1962; Director: David Lean; Writer: Robert Bolt, based on Seven Pillars Of Wisdom by T E Lawrence; Stars: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, Omar Sharif, Jose Ferrer, Anthony Quale, Claude Rains, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Wolfit)

A biopic of TE Lawrence focused on role in the Arab/Turkish conflict during the First World War.

Full Review

Shown in Super Panavision 70

Lord Jim (Country: UK, USA; Year: 1965; Director: Richard Brooks; Writer: Richard Brooks, Joseph Conrad; Stars: Peter O'Toole, James Mason, Curd Jürgens, Eli Wallach, Jack Hawkins, Paul Lukas, Daliah Lavi, Akim Tamiroff, Juzo Itami, Tatsuo Saito)

Mutiny on the Bounty (Country: USA; Year: 1962; Director: Lewis Milestone, Carol Reed; Writer: Charles Nordhoff, James Norman Hall, Charles Lederer, Eric Ambler, William L. Driscoll, Borden Chase, John Gay, Ben Hecht; Stars: Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, Richard Harris, Hugh Griffith, Richard Haydn, Tarita, Percy Herbert, Duncan Lamont, Gordon Jackson, Chips Rafferty)

The Optimistic Tragedy (Optimisticheskaya tragediya) (Country: Soviet Union; Year: 1963; Director: Samson Samsonov; Writer: Samson Samsonov, Sofiya Vishnevetskaya, Vsevolod Vishnevsky; Stars: Margarita Volodina, Boris Andreyev, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Vsevolod Sanayev, Orko Byerninen, Vsevolod Safonov, Ivan Zhevago, Daniil Netrebin, Grigory Mikhaylov, Pyotr Sobolevsky)

Propoganda film about the communist revolt, details the story of a female commissar despatched to quell rebellion in the ranks.

Shown in Sovscope-70

Patton (Country: US; Year: 1970; Director: Franklin J Schaffner; Writer: Ladislas Farago, Omar N. Bradley, Francis Ford Coppola, Edmund H. North, Francis Ford Coppola, Edmund H. North; Stars: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Stephen Young, Michael Strong, Carey Loftin, Albert Dumortier, Frank Latimore, Morgan Paull, Karl Michael Vogler, Bill Hickman)

Story of the controversial Second World War general's career.

Shown in Super Panavision 70

The Sound Of Music and War And Peace

Playtime (Play Time) (Country: France, Italy; Year: 1967; Director: Jacques Tati; Writer: Art Buchwald, Jacques Lagrange, Jacques Tati; Stars: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Rita Maiden, France Rumilly, France Delahalle, Valérie Camille, Erika Dentzler, Nicole Ray, Yvette Ducreux, Nathalie Jem)

Monsieur Hulot becomes caught up in an American tourist invasion of Paris.

Full Review

Ryan's Daughter (Country: UK; Year: 1970; Director: David Lean; Writer: Robert Bolt; Stars: Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard, Christopher Jones, John Mills, Leo McKern, Sarah Miles, Barry Foster, Marie Kean, Arthur O'Sullivan, Evin Crowley)

The Sound Of Music (Country: US; Year: 1965; Director: Robert Wise; Writer: Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse, Ernest Lehman, based on the book by Maria Augusta Trapp; Stars: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Charmian Carr, Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Heather Menzies, Anna Lee, Portia Nelson, Ben Wright), Trailer

Julie Andrews climbs every mountain in the record-breaking World War II-ish musical.

Full Review

Shown in Todd-AO

Star! (Country: USA; Year: 1968; Director: Robert Wise; Writer: William Fairchild; Stars: Julie Andrews, Richard Crenna, Michael Craig, Daniel Massey, Robert Reed, Bruce Forsyth, Beryl Reid, John Collin, Alan Oppenheimer, Richard Karlan)

The Stars Of The Day (Dnevnye zvyozdy) (Country: Soviet Union; Year: 1968; Director: Igor Talankin; Writer: Olga Berggolts, Igor Talankin; Stars: Alla Demidova, Andrei Popov, Konstantin Baranov, Tatyana Lennikova, Aleksandra Malysheva, Yelena Borisova, Ivan Ufimtsev, Anatoli Ignatyev, V. Demidovsky, Yuri Leonidov)

Rare showing of this film based on motifs from Olga Bergholz’s autobiographical book of the same name.

The Story Of The Flaming Years (Povest plamennykh let) (Country: Soviet Union; Year: 1961; Director: Yuliya Solntseva; Writer: Aleksandr Dovzhenko; Stars: Boris Andreyev, Antonina Bogdanova, Zinaida Kiriyenko, Sergei Lukyanov, Mikhail Majorov, Vasili Merkuryev, N. Vingranovski, Nikolai Vinogradovsky, Svetlana Zhgun)

Second World War drama, examining heroics both on and off the battlefields.

Shown in Sovscope-70

War And Peace (Voyna i mir) (Country: Soviet Union; Year: 1967; Director: Sergei Bondarchuk; Writer: Sergei Bondarchuk, Vasili Solovyov, Leo Tolstoy; Stars: Sergei Bondarchuk, Lyudmila Savelyeva, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Boris Zakhava, Anatoli Ktorov, Anastasiya Vertinskaya, Antonina Shuranova, Oleg Tabakov, Viktor Stanitsyn, Irina Skobtseva)

Adaptation of the Tolstoy classic.

Shown in Sovscope-70

West Side Story (Country: US; Year: 1961; Director: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise; Writer: Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, Ernest Lehman, William Shakespeare; Stars: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, Simon Oakland, Ned Glass, William Bramley, Tucker Smith, Tony Mordente)

Musical transposes the story of Romeo and Juliet to the gang-ridden streets of New York.

Full Review

Shown in Super Panavision 70