Kim Hjelmgaard

USA TODAY

BERLIN — Europe's migrant crisis will play a starring role at the Berlin International Film Festival that opens this week, a reflection of Germany's own leading performance in a crisis confronting the region.

The topical focus also reflects the distinctive character of the Berlinale, which runs from Thursday through Feb. 21.

"One of the founding ideas of the festival was to contribute to better understanding between nations and cultures," Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick told USA TODAY. The festival "has always had a reputation for being more political than maybe other festivals. Many films treated either the consequences of war or the suffering of displaced people."

The Berlinale, now in its 66th year, is one of the big three international film festivals, along with Cannes and Venice. Academy Award winner Meryl Streep is jury president for the Golden Bear, the highest prize awarded at the festival, which will open with the screening of Joel and Ethan Coen's Hail, Caesar!

More than 400 films will be screened, 20,000 industry professionals will attend, several hundred thousand tickets will be sold to the public and star-studded parties will take place against the background of 79,034 people who have sought refuge here from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Syria and elsewhere. In Germany as whole, more than 1.1 million people have arrived in hopes of securing asylum.

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Organizers are encouraging those attending the festival to make contact with the migrant community. "When the Berlin International Film Festival was launched (in 1951), there were millions of German refugees and traumatized displaced persons in Europe," a Berlinale statement said. "The festival made a point of fostering understanding, tolerance and acceptance."

The festival is offering 1,000 free tickets that pair volunteers with asylum seekers who want to go the movies. It also has set up donation and educational programs, such as cooking classes featuring migrant-prepared cuisine provided from a food truck. "It really helps people to talk and open up to one another," said Rafael Strasser, who runs Über den Tellerrand (Outside the Box), the non-profit group that organizes the classes.

"As a public festival and one of the city’s biggest annual events, the Berlinale feels a responsibility to do its part for Berlin’s culture of welcome," the statement said.

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One of the films singled out for most directly addressing the crisis is Fire at Sea by Eritrean-born Italian documentary maker Gianfranco Rosi. It's about 12-year-old Samuele, who lives on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea, where thousands of African migrants have landed.

Samuele and the inhabitants of Lampedusa are "witnesses — at times unwitting, at times silent, at times aware — of one of the greatest human tragedies of our time" and Lampedusa is "the most symbolic border of Europe," the film's publicity materials say.

Meteor Street by France's Aline Fischer revolves around an 18-year-old who has fled the war in Lebanon to a Germany that may not live up to all his expectations.

Fischer said she starting making the film in 2012, before the migrants crisis erupted. "We knew what was happening in Syria," she said. "But we weren't trying to make a film about the crisis. We were trying to tell a story with universal values."

Films from the Arab world will be featured as well. In Houses without Doors, Syrian-Armenian director Avo Kaprealian portrays an Armenian neighborhood during clashes on the streets of Aleppo, Syria. And Tamer El Said’s In the Last Days of the City revolves around the director’s home of Cairo, which has gone through political upheavals in recent years.

Berlinale director Kosslick said that because filmmakers and artists are “seismographs” of their time, some of the films will allow viewers to "change our perception of things" and "reflect and act differently."

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Kim Hjelmgaard covers Europe's migration crisis for USA TODAY. Follow him on Twitter — @khjelmgaard