Kerry Fox: At the Center of "Storm"

Kerry Fox with Rotterdam's Marten Rabarts at the Berlin International Film Festival's opening night party. Photo by Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE

A very warm, lengthy round of applause greeted Kerry Fox and the cast/crew of Hans Christian Schmid's Berlinale competition entry, "Storm" at a post-screening press conference inside the Grand Hyatt at Potsdamer Platz. With a strong lead performance, Fox anchors the engaging German-Danish-Dutch drama about a headstrong prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) in The Hague.

Last year, the film took Fox back to Sarajevo where she made Michael Winterbottom's "Welcome to Sarajevo" twelve years earlier. It also marks a key leading film role for an actress who was a fast-rising international star after receiving acclaim for her work in Jane Campion's "An Angel At My Table" (1990) and Danny Boyle's "Shallow Grave" (1994), prior to winning the best actress prize at the Berlinale in 2001 for Patrice Chereau's "Intimacy." After today's screening, numerous folks were buzzing about her turn in this film. She shares the screen with Anamaria Marinca who plays a young Bosnian woman convinced to testify against an alleged war criminal.

Asked why she was drawn to play the part, Fox elaborated that she was intrigued by the motivations of lawyers like the one she portrayed on screen. "Why do these people, who are so articulate and unique become so passionate about the right of these individuals and the rights of the human being." She added, "I feel it must be a calling, in the same way that others feel they are called [to other fields]."

Creating an accesible character was a key component of the performance for Fox, she explained. "I feel it is a fine line we are treading with this character to make her accessible to the audience to allow them to become engaged with the situation and have an understanding of what's going on with the ICTY. These victims who have suffered as well as these perpetrators who have done terrible deeds."

Fox's work in "Storm" came at a time in which she has been trying to hone her craft. "I suppose I've been trying to recently work in a much more natural way," she explained this afternoon at the Berlinale press conference, "To try and really eradicate any falseness. That was the focus, or my sort of acting aim."