Isle of Dogs to open the 2018 Berlin Film Festival | Little White Lies

Festivals

Isle of Dogs to open the 2018 Berlin Film Festival

04 Dec 2017

Words by Hannah Strong

Young boy in spacesuit with two dogs wearing baseball uniforms in old-fashioned setting.
Young boy in spacesuit with two dogs wearing baseball uniforms in old-fashioned setting.
Wes Ander­son and his canine crew are head­ed to the 68th Berlinale.

Wes Ander­son fans rejoice – par­tic­u­lar­ly those who’ll be in the vicin­i­ty of Berlin in mid-Feb­ru­ary. His hot­ly-antic­i­pat­ed stop-motion canine caper Isle of Dogs has been announced as the open­ing film for the 68th Berlinale.

It’s the first ani­mat­ed film to open pro­ceed­ings in the festival’s his­to­ry and fol­lows in the foot­steps of The Grand Budapest Hotel, which opened the 64th Berlin Film Fes­ti­val back in 2014. Isle of Dogs is actu­al­ly the fourth Wes film to screen in com­pe­ti­tion at the Berli­nale, fol­low­ing The Grand Budapest Hotel (which won the Sil­ver Bear Grand Jury Prize), The Roy­al Tenen­baums and The Life Aquat­ic with Steve Zis­sou.

Get more Lit­tle White Lies

Isle of Dogs tells the sto­ry of Atari Kobayashi, who sets out to find his dog Spots, who has been exiled to Trash Island fol­low­ing an exec­u­tive decree. A host of stars have lent their voic­es to the fea­ture, includ­ing Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Nor­ton, Liev Schreiber, Ken Watan­abe, Aki­ra Ito, Gre­ta Ger­wig, Jeff Gold­blum, Bob Bal­a­ban, and of course, Ander­son main­stay Bill Murray.

Isle of Dogs will pre­mière at Berli­nale on 15 Feb­ru­ary, ahead of a US release on March 23, and an inter­na­tion­al release in April.

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