Rebecca Miller in Berlin. (AFP)

Berlin, Feb. 15 (Reuters): Playwright Arthur Miller?s daughter Rebecca braved the press today when she appeared at the Berlin Film Festival to promote her new film, five days after her father?s death.

She was there for the European premiere of The Ballad of Jack and Rose, a poignant tale of a man?s relationship with his daughter. The father, played by Miller?s husband Daniel Day-Lewis, eventually dies after a long illness.

Looking drawn and tired, and appearing alongside Day-Lewis, Miller was spared questions about her father ? festival organisers urged reporters beforehand not to refer to the death at the post-film press conference.

?Both Rebecca and Daniel are still overwhelmed at their loss, but he and Rebecca wanted to honour her father?s wishes by coming here to Berlin to represent her film,? a spokesman for the Berlinale said. He called on journalists to ask questions about the film only ?so that their grief can remain a private matter?. Journalists stuck to the script, limiting their questions to a film that has become strangely prescient. Arthur Miller, who wrote Death of a Salesman and had a stormy marriage to Marilyn Monroe, died on Thursday aged 89 of congestive heart failure.

Rebecca Miller said the fact the relationship between Jack and his 16-year-old daughter Rose borders on the incestuous at one point in the story could become a talking point in America. ?I?m not afraid of it, but it will be interesting to see if it will make people angry or not,? she said. Miller completed the script many years ago, but the hint at incestuous desire was one of the factors which had prevented it being made sooner.

Day-Lewis, who won an Oscar for his performance in My Left Foot in 1989, said it took his wife to convince him to return to acting. The publicity-shy 47-year-old has made only seven films since My Left Foot, a small tally considering a reputation as one of his generation?s great screen actors. ?It (the part) kind of chose me, which is the way it seems to happen when I drag myself back to work,? said Day-Lewis.