A total of 20 films entered this year’s race for the Golden Bears. This Saturday, the jury, led by actress and Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, announced the winners.
He was awarded the Golden Bear Documentary film “Dahomey” by French-born director Mati Diopn. The filmmaker with Senegalese roots deals with the return of art treasures stolen from Africa. To do this, she accompanies 26 statues on their journey from France to their country of origin, today’s Benin.
The German Director Matthias Glasner received a Silver Bear for the script of his drama “Die” – the only award in the competition for Germany. The three-hour film is about the everyday life of a broken family. Corinna Harfouch and Lars Eidinger can be seen in leading roles.
This year the Grand Jury Prize went to South Korea. The jury drew the bizarre chamber play “Yeohaengjaui pilyo” (“A Traveler’s Needs”) by South Korean veteran director Hong Sangsoo. In the film, star actress Isabelle Huppert plays an idiosyncratic French woman who wants to make ends meet as a language teacher in South Korea.
The Silver Bear for best leading role goes to the Romanian-American Actor Sebastian Stan. The 41-year-old received the award for best acting performance in a leading role. He plays a man with a deformed face in the tragicomedy “A Different Man”. After an experiment, he turns into an outwardly attractive man. Contrary to what he expected, this doesn’t bring him any luck.
The award for best supporting role went to the Brit Emily Watson in the Irish-Belgian drama “Small Things Like These”. The science fiction parody won the jury prize “L’Empire”. In his film, Dumont pokes fun at common science fiction stories. It tells the story of the struggle between two worlds from the depths of space that want to ensure their survival on earth in a French fishing village.
The Dominican Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias won the Silver Bear for best director for the experimental film “Pepe”. It tells the story mainly from the perspective of a dead hippopotamus named Pepe, how it was once illegally kidnapped from Africa to Colombia by the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar for his private zoo. For an outstanding artistic achievement, the Austrian Cameraman Martin Gschlacht honored with a Silver Bear. He received the prize for his work on the morbid historical drama “Des Teufels Bad”.