"I feel like a kid in a candy store when I'm allowed to watch as many films as I can," said M. Night Shyamalan shortly before the start of the Berlinale.
Since the film festival opened on Thursday, the American director, as chairman of the jury, must now see at least 18 films running in the competition.
He himself was surprised by the nomination for jury president, as his films do not belong to the classic art cinema to which the culture of the Berlin Film Festival is committed.
Maria Wiesner
Editor in the society department at FAZ.NET.
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His first contact with the medium was far removed from claims to art; at first he simply filmed for personal reasons.
Born in Mahé, India, in 1970, Shyamalan grew up in the United States.
Mother and father worked as doctors and expected their son to follow in their footsteps.
Instead, he preferred to orientate himself in the world, so ever since he got his hands on a film camera, he has been recording scenes with family and friends - small excerpts of which can now be found as bonus material on the DVDs of his feature films.
He soon trained his eye on Alfred Hitchcock films, learned storytelling from Steven Spielberg ("Jaws" and "Rebecca" are among Shyamalan's favorite films), and found the courage to present his own stories with the confidence
He canceled Hollywood and started his own production company
First success came in 1999 with the supernatural psychological thriller The Sixth Sense, which earned him two Oscar nominations.
Then Hollywood beckoned.
He was offered the opportunity to make a Harry Potter film, but declined, preferring to start his own production company.
Such idiosyncratic decisions earned him a reputation for being arrogant.
Shyamalan takes it easy, knowing there's nothing you can do about attributions.
He prefers to let his art speak for itself and continues to make films that have become famous for their unpredictable twists and turns at the end.
That also attracts the stars.
In the science fiction film "Signs" he sent Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix on the trail of aliens, in the comic horror film "Split" he gave James McAvoy the opportunity to express more than 20 personalities in one character, and in the grotesque "Old" he had Gael García Bernal struggle with mysterious aging processes.
His heart beats for genre films that combine intelligent ideas with mass-market narratives - the decision on who receives the Golden Bear could be a surprise this year.