Stephen Daldry, Dieter Kosslick, Heike Makatsch, Kirsten Niehuus, Peter Rommel, moderated by Adrian Kennedy

Supported by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and Robert Bosch Stiftung.

“Dine & Shine – Talents Rendezvous” is the secret hot spot of the Berlinale Talent Campus. Reputed filmmaking professionals from all over the world will be gathered in one place and you will be sitting next to them enjoying dinner and a conversation. Joining Talents will also be Bernd Neumann, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Berlinale festival director Dieter Kosslick, the managing director film funding, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Kirsten Niehuus and the Berlin Today Award jury members Stephen Daldry, Heike Makatsch and Peter Rommel to announce the winner of this year’s Berlin Today Award. (By invitation only)

Stephen Daldry, Mark LeFanu

Considered today as one of the most interesting character-driven filmmakers from England, Stephen Daldry started his career in theatre. For his 1992 adaption of "An Inspector Calls" he was highly awarded on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1997 Daldry signed in as a film director with Working Title Films. Starting off with Eight, a short film on an eight-year old football fan, Daldry hit the international cinema screens with Billy Elliot in 2000. The film won the BAFTA award for the Best British Production and was nominated for an Oscar. For ­Paramount Pictures, Daldry went to Hollywood to direct The Hours ­staring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep. With his latest film being an American-German ­coproduction, Daldry came to Berlin for the shooting in 2007. Based on the successful novel "The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink and set in postwar Germany, it tells the story of a man whose life has been shaped by an illicit affair during his youth. Stephen Daldry will converse with Mark LeFanu about the art of filmic adaptation of novels while retaining the emotional depth of the original material, and about the various ways of working with actors and actresses to capture the essence of the character portrals in his films.

Isabel Coixet, Stephen Daldry, Mike Medavoy, moderated by Matthijs Wouter Knol

Developing an original idea into a finished film is a time-consuming and highly collective process. The key issue is putting together the core team, the right people who inspire, support, bring openness, ideas and suggestions to the table. These are relationships that last a lifetime. To be able to create a collective vision means being intellectually and creatively nimble enough to follow a story through its up and downs, twists and turns – and in the process yield fresh and sometimes surprising results. Finding the right people could mean the film finding its voice. Examining the very epicentre of the creative process, the people who make it all happen, the Berlinale Talent Campus invites us to look at how the development of personal craftsmanship and the knack of choosing the right people intertwine to build rewarding long-time collaborations. Famed panelists like Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet, British director Stephen Daldry and US-American producer Mike Medavoy (SHUTTER ISLAND) share their experiences of working with those key individuals who greatly inspired them and brought a creative drive to their film projects.