French actor Ludivine Sagnier, best known for “Swimming Pool” and “8 Women,” welcomed the European Shooting Stars – 10 up-and-coming European actors – on stage at the Berlinale Palast Monday.
Sagnier was one of the jury members that selected the Shooting Stars, alongside Romanian director Radu Muntean, Swiss producer Amel Soudani, Swedish casting director Pauline Hansson and journalist Vuk Perović from Montenegro.
The Shooting Stars award ceremony, held during the Berlin Film Festival, is the festive highlight and closing event of an intensive four-day program where the actors meet international casting directors and are presented to the international press. German actor Thelma Buabeng introduced the actors to the Berlinale Palast audience.
The Shooting Stars had earlier been greeted on the red carpet by Berlin festival director Tricia Tuttle and Claudia Roth, Germany’s federal government commissioner for culture and the media, in what is likely to be her final official engagement in that role before the national elections on Sunday.
The 10 actors selected for Shooting Stars are Marina Makris from Cyprus, Besir Zeciri from Denmark, Maarja Johanna Mägi from Estonia, Devrim Lingnau from Germany, Elín Hall from Iceland, Kārlis Arnolds Avots from Latvia, Šarūnas Zenkevičius from Lithuania, Lidija Kordić from Montenegro, Vicente Wallenstein from Portugal and Frida Gustavsson from Sweden.
Some of the actors are already making waves at festivals and in the awards season. Zeciri has a leading role in Magnus von Horn’s “The Girl with the Needle,” which premiered at Cannes, and is Oscar nominated in the international feature film category. Lingnau is in Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s thriller “Hysteria,” which premiered in Berlinale’s Panorama section on Saturday. Hall was in Rúnar Rúnarsson’s “When the Light Breaks,” which opened the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes. Kordić starred as Cicciolina in “Diva Futura,” which was in competition at Venice Film Festival.
The Shooting Stars program is organized by European Film Promotion.
