By IPS Correspondents
BERLIN, Feb 15 2008 (IPS)

With a fascinating range of films, and an abundance of glitz and glamour, the 58th International Berlin Movie jamboree has excited audiences this year, even if the main competition films have largely been overshadowed by the work of younger, experimental film-makers in the festival&#39s numerous other sections.

More than 400 films from around the world have been screened in Berlin, with quite a few marking the career highlights of what one might call &#39rock royalty&#39.

This led to music icons Neil Young, Patti Smith and the Rolling Stones rubbing shoulders in Berlin with the likes of Penelope Cruz, Ben Kingsley, Daniel Day Lewis and Bollywood&#39s Shah Rukh Khan at the festival&#39s flood of social events and late night parties.

Berlin&#39s 2008 main competition has lacked truly outstanding movie entries. A notable exception, though, is U.S. director Paul Thomas Anderson&#39s eight Oscar nominated There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day Lewis in the role of a ruthless and incredibly rich oilman at the turn of the 19th century.

The Berlinale, however, has a tradition of not rewarding big U.S.-made productions, instead preferring edgy, more political cinema from other regions of the world. So it will be interesting to see whether the 2008 event will end with Anderson&#39s film scooping the Golden Bear best film award.

Veteran British director Mike Leigh&#39s film &#39Happy Go Lucky&#39 about a carefree north London teacher called Poppy has also won much praise in Berlin, with actress Sally Hawkins tipped to pick up a best actress prize for her heart-warming performance in the movie.

The Iraq war, inevitably, is a theme here. In the documentary &#39Standard Operating Procedure&#39 U.S. director Errol Morris examines the notorious ill treatment of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Morris, who won a best documentary Oscar in 2004 for the &#39Fog of War&#39, conducts interviews with the military personnel responsible for a series of photographs showing Iraqi prisoners being humiliated and tortured.

The jail&#39s sacked former commandant, clearly angry at her treatment at the hands of the U.S. military brass, is also interviewed at length in the film.

Did the documentary feature shed new light on the shocking episodes at the prison? Three-quarters of the way through the film, dozens of those in the cinema left, apparently disappointed with what they had seen.

"I&#39d hoped it would give us new insights into events at Abu Ghraib," said an Egyptian journalist. "It didn&#39t. So what was the point?"

In the Panorama section of the festival, &#39Heavy Metal in Baghdad, a documentary by Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi, won praise for vividly tracing the history of Acrassicauda (Black Scorpions), Iraq&#39s only rock band, during a period of fierce fighting in Baghdad in 2006.

Separated from their families and warned they must get out of Iraq, the band&#39s members eventually fled to Syria, only to find their kind of music is practically banned.

"Today, they are officially UN-recognised refugees, living in a conservative part of eastern Turkey," Suroosh Alvi told the audience after the film&#39s screening.

"They are gifted musicians who would love nothing better than to play heavy rock in Iraq. But the situation there has become impossible. Developments in Iraq have messed up their lives," he said.

The one film to stir heated protest in Berlin has been German-based Italian director Luigi Falorni&#39s film &#39Hearts of Fire&#39 about child soldiers. It tells of an African girl&#39s hair-raising experiences during Eritrea&#39s war of independence against Ethiopia in the 1980s.

It is based on the best-selling autobiography by singer Senait Mehari, who has been accused by fellow child soldiers of making up many of the claims in her book.

Falorni, for his part, said after a press screening of the movie Thursday that he had not wanted to make a film of the book. "I saw Senait Mehari&#39s experiences as an inspiration to tell a universal story about girls in war."

His explanation did not satisfy Mahari Seghid, an Eritrean working for African Refugees News. He told the Berlin press conference: "I come from Eritrea and in the 30 years of war we never used child soldiers. This film shames 30 years of Eritrean struggle. Girls were never taken away to a camp to be trained as soldiers."

Senait Mehari has been fined 9,000 Euro by a Berlin court after complaints were made by two Eritreans who said they had been defamed in her book. But the writer has appealed against the court order.

After her book came out in 2004, it sold nearly half a million copies.

Falorni, who was co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary &#39The Story of the Weeping Camel&#39, shot this film with lay actors in the Eritrean language, Tigrinya. "When the Ethiopian government refused to give us permission to film, we prepared to shoot in Nairobi, because Kenya is home to the largest community of Eritrean migrants," he said.

The lead role in the film is played by ten-year-old Letekidan Micael, whose family fled from Eritrea to Kenya. &#39Hearts of Fire&#39 is one of several movies at the Berlinale portraying the plight of child soldiers in Africa.

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