Among the worthy films being premiered at the Berlin film festival over the next 10 days are an epic tracing China's history; three documentaries about the Fukushima nuclear disaster; Werner Herzog's look at death row; and Angelina Jolie's take on the Bosnian war.

But one of the most popular films on the day that tickets went on sale was a Finnish sci-fi comedy about Nazis living on the dark side of the moon.

Iron Sky tells how Hitler's top scientists moved to a lunar military base known as the Black Sun shortly after the end of the second world war. For more than 70 years boffins beavered away on a fleet of spaceships that one day would return to Earth and finish what the Nazis started. In 2018 the invasion begins.

The Finnish-German-Australian production was the second most popular film when the box office opened, according to Berlin's Tagesspiegel newspaper. It was beaten to the top spot by Don 2 – The King is Back, the latest from the Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan. Fans of the Indian heartthrob camped out in a shopping centre for three days and nights to get tickets for the film, which sold out in minutes.

Elsewhere, it was business as usual at the traditionally serious festival, also called the Berlinale. This year's event, the 62nd, focuses on social upheaval and political awakening, screening documentaries and fictional works from Arab film-makers, which trace the turbulent progress of the 2011 uprisings across the region and explore political and philosophical questions left in the wake of demonstrations.

The Egyptian film Reporting a Revolution, directed by Bassam Mortada, follows six journalists on the frontline during 18 days of protests. In The Shadow of a Man, directed by Hanan Abdalla, has four women talking about how a new society should look.

Last year the festival, well known for engaging in political debate, became a platform for protest against the arrest of the Iranian director Jafar Panahi. Accused of inciting opposition protests in 2009 and making a film without permission, Panahi was banned from travelling outside Iran so was unable to take his seat on the Berlinale jury.

This year the festival will continue the debate about the position of the artist in society with the international premiere of a documentary about the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

But it's not all doom and gloom. The organisers have coaxed some of Hollywood's biggest names to sprinkle a little stardust. Jolie will be hawking In the Land of Blood and Honey, her directorial debut about the Bosnian civil war, while Javier Bardem will show the documentary he produced, Sons of the Clouds: the Last Colony, about a forgotten colonial war in the western Sahara. Meryl Streep will sweep into town to accept an honorary Golden Bear – Berlin's answer to Cannes' Palme d'Or – in recognition of her reign at the top of Hollywood's tree, covering more than 30 years.

The biggest screams on the red carpet are likely to be reserved for Robert Pattinson, the British dreamboat who stars in the wildly popular vampire series, Twilight. The teen idol is expected to turn up to promote his latest movie, an adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's novel Bel Ami, in which he plays a scoundrel who rises through the ranks of 19th-century Parisian society by manipulating and seducing women.

Berlin has a surprisingly starry jury. Jake Gyllenhaal and Charlotte Gainsbourg join the Dutch photographer and film-maker Anton Corbijn (who had a hit with the Joy Division film Control) on the international panel, chaired by the veteran British director Mike Leigh.

One film vying for the award, Les Adieux à la Reine (Farewell My Queen), starring Diane Kruger as Marie Antoinette, will launch the festival on Thursday. The Berlinale, which runs until 19 February, is ranked as one of the world's top film festivals.