Nair to lead Berlin film jury

Mira Nair has won the Golden Lion

Indian director Mira Nair has been named as the head of the jury for February's Berlin Film Festival.

Nair won the Golden Lion at this year's Venice Film Festival for her romantic drama Monsoon Wedding.

Her 1988 directorial debut Salaam Bombay, about children in a red light district, won the Camera d'Ore in Cannes and was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film.

Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding

Festival director Dieter Kosslick told the event's website: "I'm absolutely delighted that Mira Nair will be the jury president for the coming Berlinale.

"She is a most committed director and a marvellous filmmaker who loves the magic of the cinema.

"She has enraptured international audiences with such magic over and over again in her own movies."

Nair is currently working on Hysterical Blindness, a love story set in New Jersey starring Gena Rowlands and Uma Thurman.

Heaven

The 52nd Berlin Film Festival will open on 6 February with the world premiere of German director Tom Tykwer's Heaven.

Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi star in the film, which is both a thriller and a love story.

The film is based on last screenplay by Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, who died in 1996, and his co-author Krzysztof Piesiewicz.

Cate Blanchett stars in Tom Tykwer's Heaven

Tykwer, who directed the hit Run Lola Run, said: "We have tried to break new ground with our ideas, the story, and how the film was made and produced.

"I'm extremely happy that the new festival director has invited us and our new friends to open the Berlinale 2002 ."

There are about 20 films in the main competition for the Golden Bear awards at the Berlinale, which runs from 6 - 17 February.

It the first major festival of the year and is considered one of the world's top events after Cannes and alongside Venice.