Dahomey, a documentary by Franco-Senegalese director Mati Diop probing the thorny points surrounding Europe’s return of looted antiquities to Africa, has gained the Berlin Worldwide Movie Competition’s prime prize.
Kenyan-Mexican Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o introduced the seven-member panel’s alternative for the Golden Bear award at a gala ceremony within the German capital Saturday.
Diop mentioned the prize “not solely honours me however your entire seen and invisible group that the movie represents”.
Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin, mentioned the documentary “confronts a problem that has been the forefront of many individuals’s minds, not simply within the movie world but additionally throughout Europe.
“DDahomeyconcentrates on the Benin bronzes and the wrestle to return these bronzes. The entire precept of restitution, that’s what the director Mati Diop referred to in accepting the prize, the Golden Bear at this competition,” Kane mentioned.
South Korean arthouse favorite Hong Sang-soo captured the runner-up Grand Jury Prize for, A Traveller’s Wants, his third collaboration with French display legend Isabelle Huppert.
Hong, a frequent visitor on the competition, thanked the jury, joking, “I don’t know what you noticed on this movie.”
French auteur Bruno Dumont accepted the third-place Jury Prize for, The Empire, an intergalactic battle of fine and evil set in a French fishing village.
Dominican filmmaker Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias gained finest director for, Pepe, his enigmatic docudrama conjuring the ghost of a hippopotamus owned by the late Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar.
Marvel film star Sebastian Stan picked up one of the best efficiency Silver Bear for his look within the US satire, A Completely different Man.
Stan performs an actor with neurofibromatosis, a genetic illness inflicting disfiguring tumours, who’s cured with a groundbreaking medical therapy.
The Romanian American star referred to as it “a narrative that’s not solely about acceptance, id and self-truth however about disfigurement and incapacity – a topic that’s been lengthy ignored by our personal bias”.
‘Collusion’
The UK’s Emily Watson clinched one of the best supporting efficiency Silver Bear for her flip as a merciless mom superior in, Small Issues Like These.
The movie, starring Cillian Murphy, is about one among fashionable Eire’s greatest scandals: the Magdalene laundries community of Roman Catholic penitentiary workhouses for “fallen girls”.
She paid tribute to the “1000’s and 1000’s of younger girls whose lives had been devastated by the collusion between the Catholic church and the state in Eire”.
German writer-director Matthias Glasner took the Silver Bear for finest screenplay for his semi-autobiographical tragicomedy, Dying. The three-hour tour de pressure options among the nation’s prime actors depicting a dysfunctional household.
The Silver Bear for excellent creative contribution went to cinematographer Martin Gschlacht for the chilling Austrian historic horror film, The Satan’s Tub. It tells the story of depressed girls within the 18th century who murdered with a purpose to be executed.
A separate Berlinale Documentary Award went to a Palestinian-Israeli activist collective for, No Different Land, about Palestinians displaced by Israeli troops and settlers within the occupied West Financial institution.
“In accepting the prize, the 2 males most concerned on this movie – one Israeli, one Palestinian – each spoke in regards to the want for a ceasefire instantly, and that may be a thought picked up by many different folks – some recipients of awards, [and] some folks presenting awards,” Kane mentioned.
Cu Li By no means Cries, by Vietnamese filmmaker Pham Ngoc Lan gained one of the best first function prize. The movie tells the story of a lady who returns to Vietnam from Germany with the ashes of her estranged husband.
Finest quick movie went to, An Odd Flip, by Argentina’s Francisco Lezama a few museum safety guard who predicts a surge within the greenback’s worth with a pendulum.
The Berlinale, because the competition is understood, ranks with Cannes and Venice amongst Europe’s prime cinema showcases.
Final yr, one other documentary took house the Golden Bear, France’s, On the Adamant, a few floating day-care centre for folks with psychiatric issues.
