The production “Dahomey,” directed by Mati Diop, was awarded the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 74th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival on Saturday evening. The Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance was awarded to Romanian actor Sebastian Stan for his role in the film “A Different Man” (USA).

The character portrayed by Sebastian Stan is a New York actor undergoing a drastic facial transformation procedure. The actor mentioned that this film was shot during the Covid-19 pandemic over the course of 22 days.

As Sebastian Stan mentioned at the press conference, reported by Variety, where a journalist asked, “What do you think happens after the transformation from this so-called beast, as they call him, to this perfect man?”, he replied that “I have to call you out a little bit on the choice of words there, because I think part of why the film is important is because we often don’t have the right vocabulary,” Stan responded. “I think it’s a little bit more complex than that, and obviously there are language barriers, but you know, ‘beast’ isn’t the word. And I think, ultimately, it’s just interesting to hear this word because I think that’s one of the things the film is saying — we have these preconceived ideas and we’re not really educated on how to understand this experience in particular.”

“That’s one of the things I love about the movie,” he continued. “He’s offering you a way to look at it, and hopefully, if you can have the same objective point of view while you’re experiencing the film, maybe you can kind of pick apart the initial instincts that you have, and maybe those aren’t always the right ones.”

The second most prestigious award at the Berlinale, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, was presented to director Hong Sang-soo for the production “A Traveler’s Needs” (South Korea). The Silver Bear Jury Prize was awarded to the film “The Empire” (L’Empire”), a French, Italian, German, Belgian, Portuguese production, directed by Bruno Dumont, as reported by Agerpres. The Silver Bear for Best Director went to filmmaker Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias from the Dominican Republic, for the production “Pepe” (Dominican Republic, Namibia, Germany, France).

The Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance was given to British actress Emily Watson for her role in the film “Small Things like These,” directed by Tim Mielants. The Silver Bear for Best Screenplay was awarded to German director and screenwriter Matthias Glasner for the film “Dying” (“Sterben”). The Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution was presented to Martin Gschlach (Austria) for the film “The Devil’s Bath” (“Des Teufels Bad”), directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala. The Golden Bear for Best Short Film was awarded to the film “An Odd Turn” (“Un movimiento extrano”) by Francisco Lezama (Argentina). The Silver Bear for Best Short Film was given to the production “Remains of the Hot Day,” directed by Wenqian Zhang (China). The GWFF Award for Best First Feature was granted to the production “Cu Li Never Cries” (Vietnam, Philippines, France, Singapore, Norway), directed by Lan Pham Ngoc. In the Encounters section, the award for Best Film went to the film “Direct Action” (Germany, France) by Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell. The Special Jury Prize was awarded to the films “The Great Yawn of History” (Iran) by Aliyar Rasti and “Some Rain Must Fall” (China, USA, France, Singapore) directed by Qiu Yang. The award for Best Director in this section was given to Brazilian filmmaker Juliana Rojas for the production “Cidade; Campo” (Brazil, Germany, France). The production “No Other Land” (Palestine, Norway), directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor, was named the winner of the Best Documentary Film award. Director Martin Scorsese was honored with a Honorary Golden Bear for his entire career at the 74th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival (February 15-25, 2024), just weeks before the Oscars, where his latest film, ”Killers of the Flower Moon,” received 10 nominations.

For the first time in the history of the Berlin International Film Festival, the jury for the main competition was chaired by a person of color, Mexican-Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in March 2014 for her performance in “12 Years a Slave.” The other jury members were: actor and director Brady Corbet (USA), director Ann Hui (Hong Kong, China), director Christian Petzold (Germany), director Albert Serra (Spain), actress and director Jasmine Trinca (Italy), and writer Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine). The film “On the Adamant” (“Sur l’Adamant”), directed by Nicolas Philibert, was awarded the Golden Bear for Best Film at the previous edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, which took place between February 16 and 26, 2023.

Romania at Berlinale

This year, only one Romanian production was present at the Berlinale, the film “Holy Week,” directed by Andrei Cohn, which premiered at the Berlinale in the Forum Section, eligible for awards given by independent juries (Ecumenical Jury Prize, FIPRESCI, CICAE, Amnesty International Film Award).

As for the entire Romanian film infrastructure, Romania was also represented at Berlinale Talents by cinematographers Ana Drăghici and Tamás A. Méder, at the European Series Market in the “Only Writers in the Building” Talent Showcase program: Eva Todică (screenwriter and film and television producer), at Emerging Producers, hosted by the European Film Market: Cristina Haneş (documentary filmmaker and producer).

European Film Market: the film project “Atlasul Universului,” written and directed by Paul Negoescu, produced by deFilm, founded by Radu Stancu (part of the Cinekid Script LAB program, the second part of the workshop after Amsterdam) and European Film Market and Berlinale Series Market: the project “Evil Eye/Piază rea,” produced by Atelier de Film, written and directed by Geo Doba, producer Gabriela Suciu-Pădureţu (part of the Torino Film Lab program, the third part of the program after Batumi, Belgium, and Leuven, Belgium).