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Irish actor Cillian Murphy arrives for the BAFTA Tea Party at The Maybourne in Beverly Hills, California. Allison Dinner, EPA-EFE

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Cillian Murphy opens Berlin film fest with Irish scandal

Agence France-Presse

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/20240215-Cillian-Murphy.jpg" style="width:950px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span id="isPasted" style="color:rgb(65, 65, 65);letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline !important;float:none">Irish actor Cillian Murphy arrives for the BAFTA Tea Party at The Maybourne in Beverly Hills, California. Allison Dinner, EPA-EFE </div>BERLIN -- Oscar nominee Cillian Murphy will open Berlin&#x27;s international film festival Thursday with the world premiere of a drama about Ireland&#x27;s notorious laundries used as prison camps for &quot;fallen&quot; young women.&quot;Small Things Like These&quot;, based on the bestselling novel by Claire Keegan and co-starring Michelle Fairley (&quot;Game of Thrones&quot;) and Emily Watson (&quot;Chernobyl&quot;), is one of 20 pictures vying for the festival&#x27;s Golden Bear top prize.Kenyan-Mexican actor Lupita Nyong&#x27;o will serve as the first black jury president at the event known as the Berlinale, which is now in its 74th year.The 11-day cinema showcase, which ranks with Cannes and Venice among Europe&#x27;s top festivals, serves as a key launchpad for films from around the world.The Hollywood Reporter&#x27;s Scott Roxborough said the festival&#x27;s outgoing director duo, Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, had been dealt a &quot;difficult hand&quot; with the coronavirus pandemic casting a long shadow over the last three years, keeping many US and Asian participants away.He told AFP he predicted more &quot;excitement&quot; this year on both the red carpet and at the festival&#x27;s sprawling European Film Market, where movie rights are bought and sold for global distribution.&quot;The old spirit should be back again at this Berlinale,&quot; he said.<div>&#x27;Stand against injustice&#x27; </div>The eclectic line-up promises a heady mix of A-list stars, hard-hitting political movies and documentaries and quirky arthouse fare to set filmgoers&#x27; hearts a-flutter.In &quot;Small Things Like These,&quot; Murphy, who is nominated for an Academy Award next month for his turn in the biopic &quot;Oppenheimer,&quot; reunites with Belgian film-maker Tim Mielants, who directed him in the hit series &quot;Peaky Blinders.&quot;Murphy plays a devoted father who unearths shocking secrets about the convent in his town linked to one of modern Ireland&#x27;s biggest scandals: the Magdalene laundries, penitentiary workhouses run by the Roman Catholic church from the 1820s until the 1990s.Most of the laundries&#x27; residents were ostracixed &quot;fallen women&quot; who had become pregnant outside marriage. Others included rape victims, orphans, prostitutes and the disabled.&quot;We are confident that this story that allies the kindness to be directed to the more fragile, and the willpower to stand up against injustice, will resonate with everyone,&quot; Chatrian said.<div>Lifetime award for Scorsese </div>Adam Sandler will present &quot;Spaceman,&quot; his latest release from a major Netflix deal, about a lonely astronaut who seeks the help of an alien when he becomes estranged from his wife, played by Carey Mulligan.Mexico&#x27;s Gael Garcia Bernal appears in &quot;Another End,&quot; which envisions a technology allowing the bereaved to reconnect with the dead. Cannes best actress winners Renate Reinsve (&quot;The Worst Person in the World&quot;) and Berenice Bejo (&quot;The Artist&quot;) co-star.Immigration drama &quot;La Cocina&quot; starring Rooney Mara promises to be a &quot;tragic and comic tribute to the invisible people who prepare our food&quot; in the world&#x27;s restaurants.And in one of the most attention-grabbing titles of the line-up, &quot;Pepe&quot; imagines the inner life of a hippopotamus from Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar&#x27;s private menagerie.Martin Scorsese, nominated for a record 10th time for a best director Oscar for &quot;Killers of the Flower Moon,&quot; is due in Berlin to collect an Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement.Iran&#x27;s Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha have said they&#x27;ve been barred from travelling to Berlin to premiere their feminist competition entry &quot;My Favourite Cake&quot; while off-screen, protests over the war in Gaza are expected during the festival.With far-right parties on the march in countries around the globe, the festival will spotlight cinema that examines Germany&#x27;s Nazi past.&quot;Treasure&quot; features Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham in a drama about a Holocaust survivor and his daughter who return together to his Polish hometown and Auschwitz.German drama &quot;From Hilde, With Love&quot; starring Liv Lisa Fries (&quot;Babylon Berlin&quot;) tells the true story of a couple at the heart of the &quot;Red Orchestra&quot; resistance group in 1942.© Agence France-Presse

Oscar nominee Cillian Murphy will open Berlin's international film festival Thursday with the world premiere of a drama about Ireland's notorious laundries used as prison camps for 'fallen' young women.

Oscar nominee Cillian Murphy will open Berlin's international film festival Thursday with the world premiere of a drama about Ireland's notorious laundries used as prison camps for 'fallen' young women.