Polanski film opens in Berlin – without Polanski

The film that Roman Polanski had to finish editing while under house arrest in Gstaad gets its world premiere tonight at the Berlin Film Festival. The stars of The Ghost Writer – Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor – were expected to hit the red carpet, but the director remains confined to his Swiss ski chalet, still waiting to see whether he can avoid extradition to the United States on a charge of underage sex with a Californian girl, dating back more than 30 years.

The Ghost Writer – dubbed the "hottest ticket in town" by the Hollywood Reporter - stars Brosnan as a British PM modeled on Tony Blair who hires a journalist (McGregor) to help write his memoirs. But McGregor's character uncovers Brosnan's hidden secrets, and then unearths a global conspiracy.

Some critics have sensed self-commentary from Polanski in this portrayal of an under-fire public figure enduring a kind of exile: Brosnan's character flees to the US; Polanski, afraid a California judge, Laurence Rittenband, was going to renege on a promise not to jail him, fled to Paris in 1978 and has never since returned to America.
 
Based on a novel by Robert Harris, the film was to have opened the Berlin festival, but organisers said they changed their minds in case the screening was interpreted as a statement about Polanski's case. Although many public figures in Europe have taken Polanski's side, many feel uncomfortable that the Polish director escaped justice.

As for whether the director will be upset to miss tonight's hoopla, Harris told the Daily Telegraph: "I imagine he has been to quite a few premieres in his time. He was very happy with [the film], which was wonderful, but of course I am hugely biased."

Meanwhile, the organisers of the eighth Kinoteka Polish Film Festival in London do not, it seems, share the concerns of their Berlin counterparts. They have embraced the controversy over Polanski with a full retrospective of his work - plus a screening of the 2008 documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, which accuses an LA prosecutor of persuading Judge Rittenband to give Polanski a tougher sentence than agreed. ·