'Genius', a film about editor Max Perkins, is Berlin fest competitor

BERLIN (Reuters) - "Genius," a biopic about the fabled editor Max Perkins, who published some of America's most famous writers, will have its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Starring Colin Firth, Jude Law and Nicole Kidman, the film about the editor who launched the careers of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe was among five movies that the festival said on Friday would be shown in competition at the Berlinale, which runs from Feb 11-21. "Genius" is the first feature film by the British director Michael Grandage, who is best known for his theater work. Also in competition is American director Jeff Nichols's "Midnight Special," starring Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst and Adam Driver. The science-fiction drama tells the story of a father and son who go on the run after the father discovers the boy has special powers. "Jeder stirbt fuer sich allein" (Alone in Berlin) is a German-French-British co-production directed by the Swiss actor, director and photographer Vincent Perez. It stars Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson in an adaptation of the 1947 novel "Every Man Dies Alone" by Hans Fallada, about a war-time German couple who start a postcard-writing campaign urging people to protest against Hitler. The French Canadian film "Boris sans Beatrice" (Boris without Beatrice), directed by Denis Cote, stars James Hyndman and Simone-Elise Girard in a drama about a successful middle-aged man whose wife is bedridden and who is forced to confront the realities of his life after he seeks romance elsewhere. "Zero Day", the lone documentary among the first five competition films, is an examination of online spying and looks at "spyware investors and the white-hat hackers trying to stop them", the film's website says. It says the film, which has Kickstarter funding, was created by musician and music producer Charles Koppelman and that veteran documentary maker Alex Gibney serves as "creative producer". The festival, which previously announced that its opening film will be the Joel and Ethan Coen brothers' Hollywood "Golden Age" comedy "Hail, Caesar!", generally shows about 20 films in the strand of movies competing for the main Golden Bear prize. (Reporting by Michael Roddy; Editing by xLarry King)