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As the 10-day film odyssey draws to a close with the awards on Saturday, and with four competition entries still to be screened, crews and critics from around the world are packing their bags and scratching their heads to pick the highlights.

“The 57th Berlinale…might best be thought of as an average festival,” wrote A.O. Scott in the New York Times.

He goes on to say that Berlin, once a bastion of serious cinema, has become “something bigger, more varied and perhaps less distinctive.” The festival has grown rapidly in recent years and attracts Hollywood glamour as well as art-house films.

Critics argue that some of the best films in Berlin this year were outside the main lineup, and wondered whether festival director Dieter Kosslick had shied away from incendiary topics that robbed the competition of its “Michael Moore moment.”

Cannes had it in 2004 with Moore’s controversial documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which went on to win the competition, while Berlin had it last year with Michael Winterbottom’s “The Road to Guantanamo,” about the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

This year the same buzz may have been created by “The Lark Farm,” a drama depicting the tragedy of a family almost wiped out in the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

Turkey denies allegations by Armenia and others that 1.5 million Armenians died in systematic genocide at Turkish hands. [Read More]