British director Mike Leigh will chair the jury of next year's 62nd Berlin film festival, one of Europe's top cinema showcases, organizers said Friday.

The 68-year-old veteran film-maker, a master of bittersweet realism in hits such as "Secrets and Lies" and "Happy-Go-Lucky", will lead a panel vetting contenders from around the world for the Golden and Silver Bear top prizes.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel joked ahead of a crunch summit on the Eurozone debt crisis Wednesday that she loved Greeks "when they act reasonably".

Asked at an event marking 50 years since Germany invited Turks as "guest workers" to fill a yawning labor market gap, Merkel was asked if she didn't long for the days when integration of Turks was a major worry on her political agenda.

European ministers embarked Saturday on overhauling a rescue package for Greece, ahead of crunch French-German talks to resolve a row over a crisis that threatens to cause global recession.

Amid dire warnings that the debt crisis is endangering all of Europe, ministers said that banks had to take a greater share of the pain in a rescue package agreed in July but already seen as insufficient to solve Greek woes.

China on Saturday pledged "full fledged support" for next month's G20 leaders summit in France, as the deepening Eurozone crisis threatens to tip the global economy back into recession.

Vice Premier Wang Qishan, China's top official on financial affairs, made the comments during a meeting with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, who stopped over in the Chinese capital following a visit to India.

Police arrested a French actor for baring his bottom to fans when they asked to take a photograph of him in the movie festival town of Cannes, media and an official said Monday.

Sami Naceri, 49, star of the hit television series "Taxi", was arrested on Sunday and is in police custody, "accused of displaying an intimate part of his anatomy" in public, said the police official, who asked not to be named.

Riding the wave of the Arab Spring, Egyptian film star Khaled Abol Naga and his international backers have launched a revolutionary bid to bring quality Arab cinema to the global market.

Kicking off at the Cannes film festival, Pacha Pictures aims to be the place to go for Arab "auteur" cinema, for which Abol Naga and his French and Lebanese partners say there is huge demand and little supply. Until now.

The 64th edition of the Cannes film festival gets underway on Wednesday with up-and-coming directors and Hollywood A-listers rubbing shoulders at the world's biggest cinema gathering.

Woody Allen's latest romantic comedy "Midnight in Paris" opens the 11-day event on the French Riviera at a black-tie evening screening that already has tongues wagging.

Arab cinema powerhouse Egypt, which in January rose up in revolt to topple president Hosni Mubarak, will become the Cannes Film Festival's first guest country at this year's event.

Festival organizers said on Thursday that they hoped to make the invitation of a guest country a tradition for future events after the 64th edition of the festival opens on May 11.