The 10 Most Exciting Films In The 2017 Berlin Lineup

“Final Portrait”
Does anyone not love Stanley Tucci? It’s hard to think of another (usually supporting) actor whose diverse portfolio inspires the kind of genuine affection that even gets him a pass for paychecking through the recent “Transformers” movies. Those are actually more bearable than “The Lovely Bones,” for which, of all the brilliant films he’s been in, Tucci received his sole Oscar nomination to date — go figure. But part of that affection in cinephile circles is also on account of his directorial output, which, starting with the widely beloved “Big Night,” has seen Tucci develop a warm, humanist, performance-driven approach behind the camera. His latest directorial film is “Final Portrait,” which sounds a little dry on paper as a biopic of pivotal 20th-century Swiss artist and sculptor Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush), but, also starring a suddenly ubiquitous Armie Hammer, alongside Clémence Poésy and “Big Night”‘s Tony Shalhoub, we trust Tucci to deliver something livelier than the biopic genre norm.

“The Party”
After too long an absence since 2012’s underrated “Ginger And Rosa,” British director Sally Potter is back with a project that boasts perhaps the most mouthwatering ensemble cast in the whole festival lineup. “The Party,” a dramedy set around a gathering that “starts as a celebration but ends up with blood on the floor,” will star Bruno Ganz, Patricia Clarkson, Cillian Murphy, Emily Mortimer, Kristin Scott Thomas, Cherry Jones and Timothy Spall. We can’t say we’ve uniformly adored everything Potter has done since the wonderful “Orlando,” which essentially created the mythic creature now known as Tilda Swinton; certainly the turgid “The Man Who Cried” and the soggy experimentalism of “Rage” and “Yes” were a turn-off. But even her failures are ambitious ones, usually with a strong political bent, and with “Ginger And Rosa” marking a refreshing embrace of a more spontaneous and less mannered style of filmmaking, and with a cast who we’d basically pay to watch brushing their teeth for 90 minutes, we’re hopeful that “The Party” will be kicking.

“Return To Montauk”
The last movie credit given to multifaceted Irish writer, journalist, essayist and critic Colm Tóibín was on John Crowley‘s wonderful “Brooklyn,” for which Tóibín’s novel provided the source material. “Return To Montauk,” however, with a screenplay co-written by veteran director Volker Schlöndorff (“The Tin Drum,” “The Handmaid’s Tale“) will be Tóibín’s first proper screenplay credit, and that alone is enough to pique interest. Starring Stellan Skarsgård as an author who, long after the fact, meets the woman he had loved as a much younger man while on a book tour in the States, it’s a meditation on aging, the passage of time and the possibility (or not) of second chances in love. With the great German actress Nina Hoss co-starring, alongside Niels Arestrup, Bronagh Gallagher and others, and with Schlöndorff, who has been on slightly stiff and stately form recently, behind the camera, there’s a danger of a kind of euro-stew resulting here. But if it can keep even a little edge, it could also be “Brooklyn” for The Olds, which would be fine by us.

“The Other Side Of Hope”
Consistently eccentric and offbeat, droll Finnish mischief-maker Aki Kaurismäki (“Leningrad Cowboys Go America,” “Le Havre“) has amassed one of the most distinctive bodies of work  of any European auteur. But unlike many directors whose careers span a similar 3 1/2-decade period, he also seems to be evolving his delightfully deadpan style, and to be embracing new themes and issues. “The Other Side Of Hope,” his first feature after a typically long Kaurismäkian hiatus, is marked out as the second in a mooted thematic trilogy that started with 2011 gorgeous, sweet “Le Havre,” in that it too will take a drily askance, microcosmic look at the European immigration debate via a focus on a port city. This time he’s closer to home in Helsinki, telling the story of a newly arrived Syrian refugee who befriends a poker-playing restaurateur and an ex-traveling salesman, and though it’s been in gestation for a long time now, its arrival in February of 2017 could not possible seem more timely. We’re not the betting type, but if we were, we might put a couple of bucks on this one to take home some silverware — bearing in mind that in the last couple of years, the big winners have been refugee-crisis documentary “Fire At Sea” and offbeat, inventive Iranian dissident dramedy “Taxi.”