Although not as cold as some years, temperatures in Berlin were less than balmy as the 61st Berlinale announced its award winners on February 19, 2011. It came as no surprise that the Golden Bear, the film festival’s main prize, went to Asghar Farhadi’s Nader and Simin, A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin)
The Iranian family drama also picked up Silver Bears for Best Actor and Actress, which were shared by the ensemble cast.
Nader and Simin, A Separation Wins Berlinale’s Golden Bear
It is the first time that an Iranian film has won the Berlinale’s top prize, and while Nader and Simin was a deserving winner, the decision has also been interpreted as political statement.
Another Iranian director, Jafar Panahi, who had been invited to serve on the Berlinale’s jury, was imprisoned last December and was unable to attend the film festival.
"Mr Panahi has been sentenced to six years in jail on a charge of (participating) in a gathering and carrying out propaganda against the system," his lawyer Farideh Gheirat told the BBC. "He has also been banned from making films, writing any kind of scripts, travelling abroad and talking to local and foreign media for 20 years."
Jafar Panahi’s seat at screenings was kept empty as a sign of protest against his incarceration. Panahi previously won the 2006 Berlinale Silver Bear award for Offside, his movie about women’s marginal role in Iranian society, and specifically their exclusion from sports stadiums
Other Berlinale Award Winners
The Silver Bear went to Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse. The movie is based on the well-known story of German philosopher Nietzsche who, after witnessing a horse being whipped in Turin, Italy, threw his arms around the animal’s neck and cried. The event supposedly marked the beginning of Nietzsche’s mental decline.
Béla Tarr, using his trademark long takes and virtually no dialogue, continues this story by imagining what happened to the horse and the farmer who owns it.
The Turin Horse, which the Hungarian director has said will be his last movie, also received the FIPRESCI prize, an independent award handed out by the International Federation of Film Critics.
Ulrich Köhler won the Best Director Silver Bear for Sleeping Sickness; while Joshua Marston and Andamion Murataj took home a Silver Bear for Best Script for The Forgiveness of Blood.
Wojciech Staron (camera) and Barbara Enriquez (production design) won Silver Bears for their work on the aptly named The Prize (El Premio).
Park Chan-wook and Park Chan-kyong’s Night Fishing, shot entirely on an Apple iPhone 4, was awarded the Golden Bear for Best Short Film.
The complete list of Berlin International Film Festival winners can be found here.
61st Berlin Film Festival Line-up Gets Chilly Reception
Rather chillier than the weather was journalists’ general reception of this year’s line-up. The Independent’s Geoffrey MacNab described the film festival’s programme as “deeply disappointing,” while others bemoaned the lack of heavy hitters.
Actors such as Vanessa Redgrave, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges (whose latest movie True Grit opened the film festival) brought a modicum of glitz to Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz. Overall, however, the film festival seemed somber, with equally somber themes dominating the programming.
Paula Markovitch’s The Prize is set in Argentina during the fascism of the 1970s; Alexander Mindadze’s bleak Innocent Saturday looks at the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion, which took place 25 years ago this year; while J. C. Chandor’s first feature Margin Call, which had its world premiere a month earlier at Sundance, is a thriller that unfolds over a crucial 24-hour period at the start of 2008’s financial crisis.
Founded in 1951, the Berlinale has always had a social and political conscience. With many Western countries still in the economic doldrums and a large part of the Arab world in political turmoil, perhaps there was just a little too much reality on offer at the German film festival this year.
Cecily Layzell - Cecily Layzell is a food and travel writer and founder of restaurant review site www.eat-amsterdam.com.
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