The results of Berlinale-2024

The second year in a row at the festival, documentary cinema wins. The whole reason is an inevitable reality or a crisis of imagination?

The 74th Berlin Film Festival was completed. On Saturday, February 24, on the stage of the Palace of Berlinal, they presented the "gold" and "silver bears." The era of the double leadership, in fact of the experimental, Carlo Shatrian and Marietta Rissenbek came to an end. At the award ceremony, Rissenbek greeted the new artistic director of Berlinale, Trisha Tatl, sitting in the hall. Shatrian with a sad smile said that next year he, of course, would return to take the best of places - in the auditorium.

The international jury of the main competition, led by Lupita Niono, was awarded to the main prize of the Dagomean Director Director Mati Diop. Diop is a Frenchwoman of Senegal origin, this is her second full meter and the second major reward-her atlantis's debut received the Grand Prix of the Cannes Film Festival, the next prize after the Golden Palm Branch. “Dagomea” is the shortest of the films that received the “Golden Bear”, in the history of the festival, it goes only an hour and seven minutes and talks about the return of relics from Dagomei from France (as Benin was called until 1975), stolen and taken out of the country by the French military at the end of the 19th century. The film is said simultaneously the past and present: the stone statues themselves, the Lev and the Ryba man themselves tell about the years themselves, and today's Benin students are warmly discussing the fact that only 26 returned from thousands of exported artifacts to their homeland. The main competition program this year was, according to the general estimates of critics, very weak. In this light, the choice of the jury is to note a film that reflects the consequences of colonialism in Africa, looks justified, besides, President Lupita Niongo grew up in Kenya.

Thus, for the second year in a row on Berlinal, documentary cinema wins-in the 2023rd film, the documentary on the Parisian psychiatric clinic “On the Adamant” Nicolas Filiber was the best film.

The victory of the documentary genre in the main competition caused a wave of criticism, primarily from German journalists. After all, at the festival there is a separate prize for the best documentary; Does this mean that the program did not find a feature film worthy of the main prize?

The competition had one picture with a shirt on the Golden Bear - the “cuisine” of the Mexican Alonso Ruppalasios. The epic drama about one day from the life of a restaurant on Wall Street, theatrical in its structure is a free film adaptation of the 1957 play of the same name-and at the same time incredibly cinematic, shot in black and white format. But the “Kitchen” split the audience: some called the film by Ruppalasios a masterpiece, others put one star. As a result, the “cuisine” was left without prizes, and the main theme of the festival - the search for a common language by people who left their house and trying to find themselves in a new place - was not represented among the winners.

“Silver bears” were received by Hong San Su (Grand Prix for “Traveler’s needs” with Isabelle Jupper) and Bruno Dumon (Jury prize for the “Empire” ). For Hong San Su, this is the fourth reward on Berlinal, where it is loved by a melancholy and unhurried movie language. The decision to reward the directors already recognized throughout the world with the established filmography for their most outstanding works is a compromise. But perhaps the jury followed the path of the least resistance - and the “kitchen” with the most annoying main character, and a strong debut from Tunisia “who I belong” about the son who had returned home, who joined the terrorist organization, did not gain enough support for support.

For the best directorial work, Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias was marked, he made a “Pepe” that was not like a hippo telling about his life.

Among the critics, Pepe was unanimously recognized as a picture, the plot and content of which cannot be retold.

German filmmakers could not leave the home film festival empty -handed, and the prize for the best script was received by Matthias Glasner, who shot the three -hour film “Dying” about the toxic relationships of children and parents.

Acting prizes went to Hollywood stars - Sebastian Stan ( “other man” ) for the main role, and Emily Watson ( “such trifles” ) for the supporting role. Stan played a man with a deformed face who changes thanks to a new medicine, and Watson was a mentor mother in one of the Irish parishes of Magdalene, where they tortured and humiliated the girls.

The distribution of acting awards can also be reproached with the jury: Sebastian Stan and Emily Watson - world -famous actors and do not need the next recognition of their talent, and after all, grandiose acting work was present at the “Devil Bath” musician Anya Plashg (soloist SOAP & Skin, she wrote music for the film) She played the peasant Agnes, who was trying to escape from the house where she is not loved and where she has no place, and Maria Hofstarter is her harsh mother -in -law. In the Danish drama “Sons” Sids Babett Knudsen (“Government”, “Ted Lasso”) played the warden of the prison, who recognizes the killer of her son in one of the prisoners (it will not be an exaggeration that Knudsen stretches a strong but not devoid of flaws).

It is possible to compensate for the absence of acting prizes in the Austrian film, the “silver bear” for outstanding achievements in the cinema was received by Martin Gishlcht, the operator of the Bath of the Devil. Brown-gray autumn paintings of Upper Austria, as if real and surreal at the same time, perfectly convey the atmosphere of the film that corrodes the soul of the main character.

Also, the film by Levan Akin Crossing from the Panorama section, a delicate and bitter drama about the journey of the Georgian teacher in Istanbul in search of a niece, was also left without the main spectator prize. He finished the second in the audience voting, and the main prize left the film “Memories of the burning body” by Antonella Sudasassassy Warm.

Another documentary received in the Encounters section the main prize - an almost four -hour tape about climatic activists from France Direct Action directors of Guillaume Kayo and Ben Russell.

For the experimental section of Encounters ( English, “Meetings, Collisions.” - Approx. Aut. ) Creeded by Carlo Shatrian, this is a completely understandable and politically important laureate, but he repeats the pattern from the main competition - the feature films selected to the festival of category A, and the jury has no remaining up to the level Important documentaries.

The most interesting films, in my opinion, were shown in the “Forum” section, where they do not present the prizes: “Passionate Week” by Andrei Cohen - a historical film about the emergence of anti -Semitism in the Romanian village and about the consequences of this, incredible in its Saspenses, as well as “All the long nights” sho Miyaka - a warm picture of two colleagues in the little Japanese Japanese company.

In the category “Best Documentary”, the winner was the Israeli-Palestinian picture of No Other Land (“There is no other land”) of the Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli Yuval Abraham. He was named the best documentary based on the results of the audience vote. Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war of Israel and Hamas became a through theme of the award ceremony-calls were repeatedly fired from the stage, and some jury members went on stage with the words “CEASE FIRE NOW” ( English “Stop the fire immediately.” - Approx. Author ), written on pieces of fabric attached to the evening outfits. Director Adra called on the German government to stop sending weapons to Israel.

The theme of Ukraine surfaced during the ceremony only once: Marietta Rissenbek recalled how Marina Er Gorbach “Klondike” presented the film about the collapse of the Malaysian MH17 Liner, and a full -scale war began later. Documentary films “Intercessed” Oksana Karpovich (“Forum”) and “A little Alien” Svetlana Lishchinskaya (“Panorama”) were left without awards.

At the European premiere of the film by Egoyan’s atom “Seven Covers” , one of the shows of the Berlinale Specials program, the audience in the Berlinal Palace Switched the Minister of Culture Claudia Roth, which, in fact, stands behind the dismissal of Shatrian and Rissenbek. Despite the fact that the artistic director of Berlinal Carlo Shatrian has many supporters and fans, a weak selection of the main competition and the absence of a film-star born at the festival-as it was, for example, with the “anatomy of the fall” by Justein Triege in Cannes or “poor-unanimous” Yorgos Lantimos in Venice, forces us to think about that, perhaps, a decision is possible Claudia’s mouth is not so wrong and the festival needs changes. The previous reformatting occurred five years ago, when Shatrian and Rissenbek were replaced by the long -term director of Berlinale Diter Kosslik.

What will be Berlinale under the leadership of Trisha Tatl will show 2025.

The full list of the winners of Berlinal can be found on the festival website .