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And so the festival season kicks off.. Berlin’s Berlinale Film Festival is one of the largest events in the film industry’s calendar. More than 19,000 industry people (including the joiningthedocs.tv team) from around 136 different countries are accredited to the event each year. This year Berlinale will celebrate its 60th anniversary, the curtain opening early next month with the screening of director Wang Quan’an’s Apart Together (Tuan Yuan), a period drama set in the grasslands of Mongolia.

Yoji Yamada seems happy about closing this year's Berlinale festival

2010’s programme is stuffed with over 400 titles. In recent years documentary has been putting in a strong appearance, making up around one third of the festival. In addition to screenings, there will be an array of panellist discussions, workshops, exhibitions and events. Since 2003 the festival has partnered with Talent Campus to host a winter school for emerging filmmakers. Past workshops have been hosted by the likes of the late Anthony Mingella and South Korean director Chan-wook Park.

The closing film of this year’s festival is About her Brother (Otouto) by Japanese director Yoji Yamada.  Martin Scorsese’s eagerly anticipated Shutter Island along with  Roman Polanski’s Ghost Writer, which will also premier at this year’s festival. The full festival programme will be announced at the end of January.

I recently caught the first instalment of UK soap star and author Ross Kemp’s new Middle East series. Ross Kemp in Gaza was an insightful look into life in one of the most politically fraught areas of the world, a conflict that has spanned almost half a century, and although frequently covered in the news, has become “white noise” to many of us.

Some other videos covering the Israel–Palestine conflict worth watching are by Swiss journalist Jürg Da Vaz in the Gaza Strip. Like video diaries with only a few interviews involved, Da Vaz captures the lives and mundainities of average Palestinians, going about their business in the Gaza Strip. Newspapers and press aside, what captured me the most was the environment of the young Gaza children, growing up in bullet–ridden streets with punitive restrictions.

Friends in conflict in ' Welcome to Hebron'

Welcome to Hebron is a shocking and honest look at the hidden world of those living their every day lives under occupation. Multi award–winning and filmed over three years, the film follows Leila, a smart and opinionated Palestinian schoolgirl who refuses to be a victim. To Israeli settlers and soldiers Leila is nothing more than a target, but like many she dreams of change, and some day bringing peace to Hebron. The film is made up of interviews with those on both sides of the conflict: through this director Terj Carlsson is determined to bring us intimacy, capturing the kind of confrontations that are often censored or hidden from the world’s press.