In February 2012, Berlin International Film Festival (BIFF) and the Academy Award Ceremony were staged consecutively within half a month. The former was invariably associated with politics, and the latter was always a huge party full of shining stars. Though reputed as the two major events in the international film circle, they are quite different from each other in their characters.

BIFF is scheduled between the Sundance Film Festival at the end of January and Academy Award Ceremony generally at the beginning of March (Of course, it was advanced this year). Compared to the other two international literary film festivals, it is never blessed with palms in Cannes, beach in Venice or pleasant weather. The freezing cold weather and desolation also affected the judges on film selection. In Berlin, a unique city that is always linked to the history of Cold War, the selected films will focus on critical reflection behind the film rather than commercialism and aesthetics. This year, BIFF presented “Cutting-edge Filmmaker”, which can be argued as a continuation of artistic quality or sarcasm on current situation.

By contrast, the 84^thAcademy Award (Oscar) Ceremony finally came up with the global attention, which symbolized the ultimate climax of Hollywood award season in the duration of three months starting from the beginning of this year. In retrospect, the candidate films were immersed with nostalgic and literary features. With five awards at hand,The Artisttells all the filmmakers the truth that a film can be silent or only black and white. But it is the most important that a film should bring us to the deep touching of video arts.