Berlinale 2022: the Awards and our opinion

The Berlinale 2022 announced yesterday the awards of the International Jury. Those included:

Golden Bear:  Alcarràs (dir: Carla Simón)

Silver Bear grand jury prize :The Novelist’s Film (dir: Hong Sang-soo)

Silver Bear jury prize: Robe of Gems (dir: Natalia López Gallardo)

Silver Bear for best director: Claire Denis for Both Sides of the Blade

Silver Bear for best leading performance: Meltem Kaptan for Rabiye Kurnaz Vs George W Bush

Silver Bear for best supporting performance Laura Basuki for Nana

Silver Bear for best screenplay Laila Stieler for Rabiye Kurnaz Vs George W Bush

Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution Rithy Panh and Sarit Mang  for Everything Will Be OK

Special jury mention: A Piece of Sky (dir: Michael Koch)

For sure we can never all agree on the same films, and to be honest we have experienced in Berlinale and other festivals far more outrageous and controversial awards. So the win for Alcarràs seemed fair, but at the same moment, other films were overlooked. The Ecumenical Jury gave its biggest award at One Year, One Night while the FIPRESCI Award went to Leonora Addio from Paolo Taviani. Both of those films were two of my favorites, and they were ignored by the International Jury, when Robe of Gems got an award while is was among the least favorite for most of the people I met in the festival. So goes for Everything will be ok, a film that can be food for anti-mask conspiracy theories that picked up an award. I loved Rabiye Kurnaz Vs George W Bush, but two awards for the film seems also too much. I would have gone with the Jury Prize for it.

But all this is just discussion, now. Let’s just hope that the films that were not among the big winners will not be sidelined and will be picked up by the buyers at EFM or Cannes markets.

On the rest of the awards, the Encounters winners were:

Best Film Award: MUTZENBACHER by Ruth Beckermann

Best Director: Unrueh by Cyril Schäublin

Special Jury Award: À vendredi, Robinson by Mitra Farahani

I have seen only Coma, I poli kai i poli, A little love package from Encounters till now, and I will check out Unrueh tomorrow, so I cannot be really sure on awards decisions.

On shorts the awards went to:

Golden Bear for Best: Trap by Anastasia Veber

Silver Bear Jury Prize: Manhã de Domingo by Bruno Ribeiro

Special Mention:  Bird in the Peninsula by Atsushi Wada