This year marked my first time attending the Berlinale. Having never been to Berlin before, and knowing the importance of the Festival, I was very excited for the trip. Every Festival is a very distinct experience, and Berlinale is no exception. The industry presence is overwhelmingly international, even more so than Cannes, largely because of the proximity to Sundance (Berlin starts about 2 weeks after).

One of the shining standouts of the 21st Philadelphia Film Festival and of the whole year was David O. Russell’s ‘Silver Linings Playbook’. Set in Philadelphia, last year’s opening night film starring Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro, and Jennifer Lawrence follows a bi-polar man who recently gets released from a mental hospital and befriends a mysterious girl with her own baggage who agrees to help him reconcile with his estranged wife. But through a series of events that involves dancing and the Philadelphia Eagles, the pair grows closer together despite all their problems.

The month of February celebrates a number of things for different groups of people. In the United States and Canada, it’s Black History Month. In the UK, it’s LGBT History Month. For fans of the NFL, it marks the end of their season as the two top teams in the NFL battle it out in the Super Bowl. Finally, for cinefiles all over the world, this February is all about Hollywood looking back at the past year’s praiseworthy films in order to honor them at the 85th Academy Awards.

However, I have a confession to make: I’m not too huge on award shows, especially the Academy Awards.

Mark Wahlberg certainly has a busy year ahead of him. He has quite the slate of films coming out and in the pipeline for 2013. There’s ‘Pain & Gain’, ‘2 Guns’, a potential sequel to ‘Ted’, and a brand new ‘Transformers’ movie to start another trilogy for the robots in disguise. However, his first movie of the year, ‘Broken City’, where he co-stars with Russell Crowe, hits theaters on January 18, 3013.

Earlier this week, the Prince Music Theater hosted a screening of the upcoming film ‘Broken City’ featuring an appearance from Wahlberg and director Allen Hughes.