Animated feature kicks off 68th Berlin Int'l Film Festival

Festival director Dieter Kosslick, right, poses with the jury, from right, Tom Tykwer, Cecile de France, Chema Prado, Adele Romanski, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Stephanie Zacharek during opening of the 68th edition of the International Film Festival Berlin, Berlinale, in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018. [Photo: AP/Markus Schreiber]

The 68th Berlin International Film Festival, which is more commonly known as the Berlinale, kicked off Thursday with an animated feature.

"ISLE of dogs", a joint film production from Britain and Germany and the first animated picture ever to open the festival, tells an adventure story about a Japanese boy looking for and rescuing his dog.

German director Tom Tykwer is President of this year's jury.

"There are so many reasons that speak for this film to open the Berlinale. It looks like it's really joyful and not stupid but pretty smart, and even though we see dogs that have voices and the owners of the voices are all coming, which is what you want when you open a festival, you want all these people on the carpet. So I think there is an incredible amount of pretty amazing artists coming tonight to gather to watch a dog animation movie," said Tykwer.

Another 23 films have also made it into this year's main competition category, 19 of which will compete for the best picture award, the Golden Bear, and other individual awards, the Silver Bears.

400 films from all over the world have entered in various categories and will be screened around the city during the festival.

According to Berlinale chief Dieter Kosslick, this year's Berlinale will also hold a series of film-related events in the coming ten days, some of which focus on the recent anti-sexual harassment campaign in the entertainment industry.

This year's Berlinale will last until February 25.