After ten days of the festival, the seven-member jury decided which of the twenty films (of which only two from Germany this time) should receive a Silver Bear or even the Golden Bear in the official competition. This year the jury was led by actress Lupita Nyong’o, who won an Oscar for her role in “12 Years A Slave”.
The jury also included American director and actor Brady Corbet, Chinese director Ann Hui, Spanish director Albert Serra, Italian actress and director Jasmine Trinca, Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko and German filmmaker Christian Petzold (“Red Sky”) .
The Golden Bear for Best Film…
…going to this year “Dahomey” by Mati Diop!
Restitution refers to the return of stolen art that was brought to Europe from African countries, among others, during the colonial period. One of those plundered countries was the kingdom of Dahomey, located in the territory of the current state of Benin. The French state restored 26 works of art here, a process that the Senegalese-French director Mati Diop observed. The result is the documentary ‘Dahomey’, which manages to illuminate not all, but many aspects of the complicated debate about restitution and decolonization in less than 70 minutes.
The other bears
Silver Bear for outstanding artistic achievement: Martin Gschlacht in front of the camera of “Des Teufels Bad”
Silver Bear for Best Screenplay: Matthias Glasner for “Die”
Silver Bear for Best Acting Performance in a Supporting Role: Emily Watson for ‘Little Things Like This’
Silver Bear for best acting performance in a leading role: Sebastian Stan for ‘A Different Man’
Silver Bear for Best Director: Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias for ‘Pepe’
Silver Bear Jury Prize: Bruno Dumont for “L’Empire”
Grand Jury Prize Silver Bear: Hong Sang-Soo for “The Needs of a Traveler”
The FILMSTARTS ranking of competition films
Not only did we see all 20 films in the Berlinale competition this year, but we also published a detailed film review of all 20 films on FILMSTARTS. That is why we do not award Gold or Silver Bears, but we do present them to you our ranking of all competition entries:
- “Des Teufels Bad” by Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz -> for review (4 stars)
- “A Traveler’s Needs” by Hong Sang-Soo -> to the review (4 stars)
- “A Different Man” by Aaron Schimberg -> to the review (4 stars)
- “Architecton” by Victor Kossakovsky -> for review (4 stars)
- “My favorite cake” by Maryam Moghadam, Behtash Sanaeeha -> to the review (4 stars)
- “With love, your Hilde” by Andreas Dresen -> for review (4 stars)
- “Shambhala” by Min Bahadur Bham -> for review (4 stars)
- “Dahomey” by Mati Diop -> for review (4 stars)
- “Black Tea” by Abderrahmane Sissako -> to the review (4 stars)
- “Die” by Matthias Glasner -> for criticism (3.5 stars)
- “Pepe” by Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias -> to the review (3.5 stars)
- “Small Things Like This” by Tim Mielants -> to the review (3.5 stars)
- “Sons” by Gustav Möller -> to the review (3 stars)
- “Gloria!” by Margherita Vicario -> to the review (3 stars)
- “Suspended Time” by Olivier Assayas -> to the review (2.5 stars)
- “L’Empire” by Bruno Dumont -> to the review (2.5 stars)
- “To whom do I belong” by Meryam Joobeur -> to the review (2.5 stars)
- “La Cocina” by Alonso Ruizpalacios -> to the review (2 stars)
- “Langue Étrangère” by Claire Burger -> to the review (2 stars)
- “Another End” by Piero Messina -> to the review (2 stars)