The race for the Golden Bear top prize at the 65th Berlin film festival shaped up as a dead heat Saturday, with break-out talents looking well placed to pip cinema heavyweights.
Ahead of a gala awards ceremony in the German capital for the Berlinale, as the 11-day event is known, a slow-burn British drama about a foundering marriage and a banned Iranian picture emerged as favourites.

Casting aside its economic woes, corruption scandals and recent humiliation on the football pitch, Brazil opened five days of non-stop partying Friday as Rio de Janeiro's Carnival officially opened.
"King Momo," the portly partier who presides over Carnival, declared the festivities open as he received the keys to the city after arriving in a limousine flanked by the carnival queen and two princesses.

It's the million dollar question. More than a year after revelations that French President Francois Hollande had cheated on his partner with actress Julie Gayet, are the two lovebirds still together?
News of the French leader's affair with Gayet, divulged by Closer magazine in January last year, prompted the 60-year-old to split with his long-term partner Valerie Trierweiler and rumours have swirled ever since that the president and actress are still an item.

Texas, the band behind hit singles such as "I Don't Want a Lover" and "Say What You Want", is celebrating its 25-year career with a soulful album recasting past feats -- and declaring its lodestar is still making music, not chasing fame.
Lead singer Sharleen Spiteri said that even now, the secret of Scottish group's longevity is elusive.

At a bar in the trendy Shoreditch area of east London, comedian Russell Brand is preaching revolution with his blend of jokes and impassioned commentary that has earned him a mass following.
Despite largely being drawn from sections of society traditionally withdrawn from politics, the young audience hangs on Brand's every word.

It may take the Iceman a long time to arrive, but in director Robert Fall's powerful production of "The Iceman Cometh," the waiting takes place with unforgettable company, including Nathan Lane, Brian Dennehy and John Douglas Thompson.
The entire excellent ensemble from the well-received 2012 production at Chicago's Goodman Theatre is performing Eugene O'Neill's dark, nearly five-hour 1939 classic through March 15, in its New York premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

After wowing the judges of 'Arabs Got Talent', five young Palestinians who formed a band while bombs rained down are hoping their budding success can raise awareness for war-ravaged Gaza.
Their first audition so impressed that they were propelled to the semi-finals of the hit Middle Eastern television show -- a spin-off of the British-created Got Talent franchise.

You must remember this... except if you are in Qatar which is set to publicly screen the classic Hollywood movie "Casablanca" for the first time later this month.
Time may have gone by since the film's release -- 73 years to be precise -- but the iconic World War II love story starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman will belatedly receive its Qatar premiere on February 28.

The son of kung fu star Jackie Chan was released from a Chinese jail on Friday after serving a six-month term for drugs offences, his agency said.
Jaycee Chan, who like his father has worked as an actor and singer, was detained in August and charged with providing a venue for others to use drugs after police found 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of marijuana at his home in Beijing.

Faces, bodies, status and humor are all important in Internet dating, but the biggest success factor of all could be your name.
So say scientists who found that people whose online name began with a letter in the top half of the alphabet -- A to M -- get the most "looks" from others.
