The Competition is the main event of the Berlinale and was the original seed out of which the Festival, in all its many parts, has grown. The first International Film Festival Berlin was envisioned as an international cultural event that was to bring the postwar world to Berlin and Berlin to the world. Obviously this also had its political side. And in fact there was the financial side as well - this was seen as an opportunity to help get the decimated film industry in Berlin back on its feet 

It’s no news that Hollywood has always made extensive use of published work as material for their product. Whether it’s a classic property like Lord Of The Rings, a literary adaptation like No Country For Old Men, or even a popular comic book like Iron Man or Batman. While European cinema is by no means lacking in adaptations of already existing books or plays, the insider connection between the publishing industry and the film industry is not as fully developed on this side of the Atlantic. In order to faciliate this exchange 

When the political controversy that broke out at the Berlinale in 1970 literally shut down the Competition, the resulting fallout brought to the surface a lot of internal conflict about the identity of the Berlinale itself. The solution was to create a new program, a counter event to the Competition which would be, as founding director Ulrich Gregor put it, "a catch-all for everything dangerous, subversive, or in any way unruly" 

Part of Dieter Kosslick’s response to taking over directorship of the Berlinale was that he felt that it wasn't enough to just discover and show films. He said that the Festival owed something to the movies themselves, "the business side and the artistic side - which means that we should make an investment in the future of cinema, and this future is the young filmmakers." This idea translated into the creation of the Talent Campus, which in the last 8 years has developed into one of the most energetic and pro-active initiatives of the Berlinale 

Of all the major festivals in the world, the Berlinale is unique in presenting a core program section devoted to films for young people. Divided into two competition strands, Kplus and 14plus, Generation offers its young audiences a full range of categories, including shorts, features and documentaries. The prestigious Crystal Bears are awarded for the best films by two young peoples' juries 

Already in its second year, the Berlinale began presenting a retrospective programme, which the Festival’s founding director Alfred Bauer used to refer to as his "favorite child." At first it was largely nostalgia based and aimed at older audiences, presenting silent films and selections of international classics. In later years it refined its focus, introducing German audiences to the work of Ozu or Brazil's Cinema Nova and bringing "home" the work of German exiles like Billy Wilder and Marlene Dietrich 

Panorama section head, Wieland Speck, likes to say that the Panorama and the Market have been related since birth. And this birth occurred when Moritz de Hadeln took over the directorship of the Berlinale in 1980 and one of his first moves was to give two of the festival sub sections, the Film Messe - later to become the EFM, and the "Info-Schau" - which evolved into the Panorama, independent control over their own programs 

Each year, the Berlinale Co-Production Market presents some 35 selected promising feature projects, and arranges about 1000 one-on-one meetings for their producers with interested potential co-producers, sales agents, distributors, and financiers. "Basically everybody working in international co-productions attends the Berlinale and the EFM,", explains Sonja Heinen, head of the Berlinale Co-Production Market, "so it was virtually a 'natural decision' to bundle this potential