Yo-Yo Ma in The Music to Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. [Photo/douban]

The first nine films for the 66th Berlin International Film Festival Competition and Berlinale Special programme have been selected.

Hail, Caesar! by Joel and Ethan Coen will open the festival this year. Five productions and co-productions from Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom and the US were added on Friday to the Competition programme.

Genius, a biopic about the fabled editor Max Perkins, who published some of America's most famous writers, will have its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Starring Colin Firth, Jude Law and Nicole Kidman, the film about the editor who launched the careers of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe was among five movies that the festival said on Friday would be shown in competition at the 66th Berlinale.

As part of the official programme, Berlinale Special will feature works by contemporary filmmakers, documentaries and features in unique formats.

The Music to Stranger: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, a documentary on Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma by American director Morgan Neville, was selected as part of the three documentaries to be featured at Berlinale Special.

The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger by the directing team of Colin MacCabe, Christopher Roth, Bartek Dziadosz and Tilda Swinton and Where To Invade Next by Michael Moore will also be screened.

The 66th Berlinale runs from Feb 11-21, 2016.

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