Bette Midler’s New Film ‘Freak Show’ To Play At Berlin Film Festival (Feb 9 -18, 2017)

Hollywood Reporter
Berlin Film Festival Reveals Final Films in Generations Sidebars Aimed at Young Audiences
9:59 AM PST 1/13/2017
by Scott Roxborough

Berlin on Friday unveiled the final titles in its Generations sidebars, Generation 14plus and Generation Kplus, for films targeting younger audiences.

The Berlin Film Festival begins on February 9th and ends on February 18th.

*Freak Show, the directorial debut of British producer (and wife of Sting) Trudie Styler, will have its world premiere in Berlin’s Generation 14plus section. The teen drama stars Alex Lawther as a student at a conservative high school who decides to campaign to become homecoming queen. Abigail Breslin, Bette Midler, Laverne Cox, Larry Pine and Ian Nelson co-star.

*Freak Show
USA
Dir. Trudie Styler
World premiere
Somewhere between David Bowie, Lady Gaga, Freddy Mercury and Oscar Wilde, Billy has carved out his own spot in the sparkling firmament of pop culture. Though the denizens of his conservative surroundings find all this markedly less fabulous, Billy has no intention of deviating from his plan to campaign for the role of Homecoming Queen at his school. What at first seems a high school caper transforms into a bombastic yet nuanced drama, one which earns the attribution that Billy himself has also claimed as his own: trans-visionary. Aside from Alex Lawther’s brilliant performance, Bette Midler, Laverne Cox, Larry Pine and Ian Nelson also shine in this one-of-a-kind film.

Among the other world premieres in the Generations sidebar this year are Chinese drama The Foolish Bird, from Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka; Jackie van Beek’s New Zealand dramedy The Inland Road; and Soldier, from Argentina’s Manuel Abramovich, which follows a 19-year-old who becomes a drummer in the Army. The documentary School Number 3, from directors Yelizaveta Smith and Georg Genoux, which looks at 13 teens from a recently rebuilt school in southern Ukraine, will also have its first screening in Berlin.

Also screening in the 2017 Generations sidebars are Loving Lorna, from Swedish directors Annika and Jessica Karlsson; Brazilian coming-of-age tale Don’t Swallow My Heart, Alligator Girl!, from director Felipe Braganca; and Poi E: The Story of Our Song, another New Zealand drama, this one from director Tearepa Kahi, about a Maori pop song that took New Zealand’s charts by storm back in 1984.