Rolling Stones, Madonna add Pop Glitz to Berlin Film Festival

The Rolling Stones and Madonna are sprinkling some extra rock glitter on this year’s Berlin Film Festival, an event that promises to have a strong music slant.

Martin Scorsese’s “Shine a Light“, a documentary focusing on two 2006 Rolling Stones concerts at the Beacon Theater in New York, will premiere as the opening film on February 7, with Scorsese and the Stones attending to promote the movie.

“Films with music or musicians at their center are the most important ingredient of this year’s festival,” director Dieter Kosslick wrote in an introduction to the program.

Madonna’s directing debut, “Filth and Wisdom“, starring Richard E. Grant features in the Panorama section. Set in London, it has an array of bizarre, colorful characters: a Ukrainian who dresses up as a schoolmaster to abuse grown men who pay for the pleasure and a pole dancer who is terrible at her job.

The festival runs from February 7 through February 17. For more information, go to www.berlinale.de. Tickets go on sale tomorrow, both online and at three locations in Berlin.

From an article by Catherine Hickley, Bloomberg.