Source: Variety

A fitting start for the Berlinale, Tom Tykwer’s THE INTERNATIONAL brought current events front and center at the film’s gala opening on Thursday. The pic—about an Interpol agent and a district attorney trying to bring to justice a multinational bank whose illegal activities include money laundering and destabilizing governments—has generated discussion here about its parallels to the present global meltdown.

Earlier in the day, Tykwer played down the similarities, stressing that the message of the film is not that banks are evil but that some banks are involved in such activities.

“We shouldn’t trivialize current events. The situation is dramatic, and we are all in the same boat. But the root of the problem is older than any banker alive today—they go back more than 100 years.”

While the film’s Naomi Watts was absent (having given birth to a baby boy in December), co-star Clive Owen generated plenty of glamour, remaining on the red carpet to greet fans for so long that fest director Dieter Kosslick quipped, “Clive broke George Clooney’s red-carpet record.”