Claudia Llosa scoops Golden Bear and Europe dominates prize list unlike last year. The closing ceremony of the 59th Berlinale was a triumph for European films, which won ten of the 12 awards (including six out of eight Bears) presented on February 14th at the Palast by the international jury presided by Tilda Swinton.
The jury unanimously awarded the Golden Bear for Best Film to Claudia Llosa’s Spanish/Peruvian title “The Milk of Sorrow.” It is the first Spanish title in 26 years to win the Golden Bear and the film also picked up the Fipresci Prize.
Another European co-production triumphed: Uruguayan director Adrian Biniez’s German/Dutch Gigante was ex aequo winner of the Grand Jury Prize. The film also picked up the Alfred Bauer Prize for innovation (shared with Sweet Rush by Polish master Andrzej Wajda, who was praised for the personal effort he invested in his film) and Best Debut Film.
Biniez shared the Grand Jury Prize with young German director Maren Ade’s Everyone Else, which furthermore earned actress Birgit Minichmayr a Silver Bear. Sotigui Kouyate – winner of the Silver Bear for Best Actor for his performance in Rachid Bouchareb’s London River – told a few African tales to the audience and praised the Berlinale for the way in which it promotes encounters between different peoples and cultures (the central theme of Bouchareb’s film).
Finally, Spanish director and jury member Isabel Coixet lauded the inventiveness and unpredictability of the superb soundtrack to Peter Strickland’s Hungarian/UK/Romanian film Katalin Varga.
Saturday, February 14, the 59th Berlin International Film Festival came to an end with the Award Ceremony, with 1600 guests attending the glamorous gala in the Berlinale Palast. As the closing film of this year’s Berlinale director Costa-Gavras presented the world premiere of his film Eden Is West.
In total 383 films in 1238 screenings were shown. Interest in the Berlinale among visitors from both the film industry and the general public has been impressive: nearly 20.000 accredited visitors from 136 countries attended the festival and approximately 270.000 tickets were sold – an audience record. Audiences enthusiastically embraced the Berlinale’s new venues – the Friedrichstadtpalast and the Cinema Paris in the Institut Fran袩s. A number of splendid Berlinale special premieres were celebrated at the sold-out Friedrichstadtpalast.
A special cinema experience was offered by this year’s Retrospective “70 mm – Bigger than Life”: audiences had the unique opportunity to enjoy wide-gauge classics, such as William Wyler’s Ben-Hur and David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, in their impressive original format at the Kino International and Cinestar, both of which were specially equipped for the screenings.
The European Film Market (EFM) – the main event for the film industry at the Berlin International Film Festival – also had a fine year. Despite the difficult economic situation, business was good. “Thanks to our new venues, we were able to give more moviegoers the chance to experience the diversity of our Festival program. Indeed, the Berlinale proves that there are plenty of passionate movie-lovers out there”, says Festival Director Dieter Kosslick.
Full list of prize winners:
Golden Bear for Best Film
The Milk of Sorrow by Claudia Llosa
Silver Bear – Grand Jury Prize (ex aequo)
Everyone Else by Maren Ade
Gigante by Adrian Biniez
Silver Bear for Best Director
Asghar Farhadi – About Elly
Silver Bear for Best Actress
Birgit Minichmayr – Everyone Else
Silver Bear for Best Actor
Sotigui Kouyate – London River
Silver Bear for Best Screenplay
Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon for The Messenger
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Achievement
Gabor Erdꭹ and Tamas Szꬥly for the soundtrack to Katalin Varga
