10 women who will rock the 2019 Berlin Film Festival

The Danish director's latest film, "The Kindness of Strangers," will open the Berlin Film Festival's competition. Scherfig was among the filmmakers of the Dogme 95 movement with "Italian for Beginners" (2000), adding a light-hearted comedy to the mostly grim series of films. Her 2009 coming-of-age drama, "An Education," written by Nick Hornby, obtained three Oscar nominations and won 25 awards.

The 2019 Honorary Golden Bear celebrates a career spanning five decades. From the 1960s to this day, Rampling has performed over 100 roles, including recent award-winning performances in "45 Years" (2015) and "Hannah" (2017). Working in French, Italian and English, she has always preferred challenging roles: "To discover what normal means, you have to surf a tide of weirdness," she once said.

While the actress has appeared in over 60 films, Binoche is perhaps best-known outside of France for her Oscar-nominated role in the romantic comedy "Chocolat" (2000). Yet the head of the Berlinale jury has cinematographic tastes that go beyond sugar-coated hits. She declined, for instance, a role in Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" to star instead in Krzysztof Kieslowski's cult "Three Colors: Blue."

Crowned in Cannes for her performance in Fatih Akin's 2017 "In the Fade," the German-American actress will be among the celebrities walking Berlin's red carpet this year. She stars in the espionage thriller "The Operative," directed by Israeli filmmaker Yuval Adler. In the work screened out of competition, she portrays a Mossad agent sent to Tehran on an undercover mission.

Seven titles among the 17 works in the 2019 competition were directed by women. Among them, renowned Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland will premiere "Mr. Jones," which tells the story of a journalist reporting on the famine in Stalin-era Ukraine. Holland's acclaimed Holocaust drama "Europa Europa" (1991) won the best film Golden Globe, while her TV directing credits including "The Wire."

The prolific Spanish director has been a Berlinale regular since her drama, "My Life Without Me," was nominated for a Golden Bear in 2003. Part of the jury in 2009, she opened the festival in 2015 with "Nobody Wants the Night," starring 2019 jury head, Juliette Binoche. Coixet is competing this year with "Elisa & Marcela," about a female couple who pioneered same-sex marriage in Spain in 1901.

Schanelec started her career onstage, and later established her reputation as one of the most renowned "Berlin School" filmmakers along with Christian Petzold and Thomas Arslan. At the festival this year, she is featured in the competition with "I Was at Home, But," about a teen disappearance, while her 1995 film "My Sister's Good Fortune" is in the Retrospective focused on German women directors.

She was at the leading edge of the French New Wave in the 1950s and 60s, one of the most influential movements in cinema history. Now aged 90, the filmmaker is still incredibly active. Premiering at the Berlinale out of competition, her documentary "Varda by Agnes" offers insight into her eclectic oeuvre. Varda will also be honored with a special prize, the Berlinale Camera.

After Dieter Kosslick's final edition this year, the managing director of German Films — the organization in charge of promoting the country's movies worldwide — will become the first woman to lead the Berlinale. Rissenbeek has been appointed executive director of the festival and will be sharing Kosslick's position with Carlo Chatrian, who's moving from Locarno to Berlin as artistic director.

Another Berlin regular, Tilda Swinton, will again set the standard for cool on the red carpet in 2019. She appears in two films in the festival's loaded program: Joanna Hogg's "The Souvenir," which just won a top award at Sundance, is screened in the Panorama section; while the 1990 arthouse work "The Garden" is featured in the experimental Forum section.