The Berlinale: An Upcoming Summer Special & Previous Award Winners
Due to pandemic restrictions, the Berlinale's organizers were forced to develop a new format for this year's film festival. The first staging of the 71st edition took place in early March, presenting a virtual Industry Event aimed primarily at the film trade and press, with only Berlinale Talents and the World Cinema Fund offering online events for the public. The Berlinale is now working at full speed to inaugurate their Summer Special, an audience-focused experience—from June 9–20, the 2021 programme will be shown to the public and awards presented at a physical prize ceremony. This year's winners include Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude, who received the revered Golden Bear for his satire Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn, and Dénes Nagy, who took home the Silver Bear for Best Director for her debut feature Natural Light.
Filmatique is proud to host a selection of previous Berlinale winners on our platform—Jafar Pahani's Taxi, in which Pahani himself poses as a taxi driver gleaning stories from disparate passengers, won the Golden Bear for Best Film in 2015 for its poignant portrayal of modern-day Iran. Another Golden Bear-winning documentary is Gianfranco Rosi's Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea), which juxtaposes the desperate experience of refugees arriving in Lampedusa with the everyday existence of the locals, offering an immersive look at the migrant crisis on the Sicilian island. Adina Pintilie's Touch Me Not, a visual essay exploring our notions on the nature of physicality and intimacy through a series of encounters with individuals who avoid touch, won the festival's top prize in 2018.
Other memorable wins include filmmaking talents such as Alonso Ruizpalacios, recipient of the 2014 Best First Feature Award for Güeros, a galvanizing comedy exploring the inability of Mexican youth to feel at ease in their own country. Also available to stream is Ursula Meier's second feature film Sister, which took home the Silver Bear in 2012 for her simultaneously personal and political portrayal of two Swiss siblings living on the brink of poverty as they are brought together by a moral awakening.
Sister, Ursula Meier (2012)