Award
“Die” was successful twice with the Berlinale juries
Director Matthais Glasner can be happy: his film “Die” was honored by independent juries at the Berlinale. photo
© Monika Skolimowska/dpa
Independent juries awarded Mathias Glasner’s film. Other films were also highly praised at the Berlinale.
With his film, director Glasner deals with the complex relationship with his family, dealing with death and the depths of life before it. For this there was both the “Gilde Film Prize” and the reader’s jury prize of the “Berliner Morgenpost”.
There were also two awards for “Sex” by Dag Johan Haugerud. In it, the Norwegian director has his heterosexual protagonists rethink their ideas about sexuality and gender roles. The film received the prize from the ecumenical jury in the Berlinale Panorama section and from the film association Confédération Internationale des Cinémas d’Art et d’Essai (CICAE) for this section.
Award for Iranian film about resistance
The ecumenical jury also honored the Iranian competition entry “Keyke mahboobe man” (“My Favorite Cake”). The directing team Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha were unable to come to the Berlinale after the Iranian authorities banned them from leaving the country. The film with Lily Farhadpour and Esmail Mehrabi tells of personal resistance and moral courage against the backdrop of love found in old age.
In the Forum section, the ecumenical jury honored “Maria’s Silence” by Dāvis Sīmanis, a teaching piece about the logic of human violence. In this section, the film association CICAE awarded the prize to “Shahid” by the Iranian-rooted director Narges Kalhor, a film between reality and fiction, theater and musical.
The refugee drama “The Stranger’s Case” by the American director and activist Brandt Andersen received the Amnesty International Film Prize. From the jury’s point of view, the film touches on all levels. Andersen immediately donated the 5,000 euro prize money to refugee aid. He also appealed to the political leadership in Germany to return to their exemplary role in refugee policy.
Audience awards in the Panorama category
The AG Kino – Gilde awarded an award in the Generation 14plus section to the film “Last Swim” by Sasha Nathwani. The prize from the jury made up of readers of the “Tagesspiegel” went to “Une famille” (“A Family”) by the French writer Christine Angot.
The Berlinale also announced the audience awards in the Panorama section. The award went to the film “Memorias de un cuerpo que arde” (“Memories of a Burning Body”) by the Costa Rican director Antonella Sudasassi Furniss and the documentary “No Other Land” by the Palestinian-Israeli collective Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor on the expulsion of the Palestinian population from the West Bank by the Israeli occupation.