See China

It’s a Chinese film by a former winner of the festival’s Golden Bear that opens the event Thursday night.

Exploring themes of reunification and division, which have resonance both in the formerly partitioned host city of Berlin, and in China, where all of the nation’s territory is not yet fully united,  “Apart Together” (“Tuan Yuan”) looks at a family split by the Chinese Civil War, and their attempts to become one again decades.

The film was written and directed by Wang Quan’an, who took home the Golden Bear in 2007 for “Tuya’s Marriage,” a moving tal e of love and a family faced with a different kind of division, due to illness and economic hardship. The film put Wang on the map as one of the top directors of China’s so-called Sixth Generation.

However, he was not the first Chinese director to win the prize. That honor went to Zhang Yimou way back in 1988, for his first major film, “Red Sorghum,” starring Jiang Wen and Gong Li.

Five years later, Chinese directors won again, with Xie Fei and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” director Ang Lee sharing the award. That year, Xie entered with “Woman Sesame Oil Maker”; Ang competed with “The Wedding Banquet.” Combined with Wang’s 2007 win, the awards make China Asia’s most successful nation at Berlin.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Wang said, “I think that people would agree that families should be united or reunited, but that doesn’t mean that those reunions are not without some pain. This doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be together, that they should stay apart, but some people are very surprised when they encounter these kinds of problems and can’t solve them.”

The movie is particularly poignant for Berlin audiences, which is perhaps why it was chosen to open this year’s festival. “I think the influence of this kind of division on a people or on a country lasts longer than we would imagine. It takes many years to get past it. I’ve been to Berlin many times now so I think I have a little understanding of the place. In Germany, in Berlin, even 20 years after reunification, they are still discovering problems with it, and some social problems are emerging. These are caused by differences that came first from being divided, and now being brought back together. They will be hard to resolve simply,” Wang said.

Joining Wang in Berlin is an old friend: actress Yu Nan, who starred as the title character in “Tuya’s Marriage.” She is serving on this year’s jury, in rarified company. She joins Austrian director Werner Herzog, who heads the jury, along with American actress Renee Zellweger, Italian director Francesca Comencini, Somalian writer Nuruddin Farah, German actress Cornelia Froboess, and Spanish producer Jose Maria Morales.

Although no Chinese films are in competition this year, it’s clear that in 2010, the Berlin International Film Festival sprechen Chinesisch.