French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop made history at tonight’s Berlin Film Festival awards ceremony, becoming the first Black director ever to win the Golden Bear, the fest’s top prize, for her inventive, resonant documentary “Dahomey.” She accepted the award from Lupita Nyong’o, in turn the first Black person ever to preside over the festival’s Competition jury — a stark image of progress to cap off a ceremony marked by impassioned statements against war and social discrimination.
Following French docmaker Nicolas Philibert’s Golden Bear triumph last year with his film “On the Adamant,” “Dahomey” is the second consecutive nonfiction feature to take the award. But it’s a radically unorthodox winner nonetheless, beginning with its 67-minute running time. (That makes it the shortest film to take the Bear since James Algar’s doc short “In Beaver Valley” way back in 1951, the festival’s very first year.) Yet Diop, the actor-turned-director who took the Grand Prix at Cannes 2019 with her fictional debut feature “Atlantics,” packs a world of historical and political perspective into her film’s tight framework, examining France’s 2021 return of 26 ancient artifacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey to Benin, an attempted correction of 19th-century colonialist injustice.
With major Euro festival hardware for her first two features, each made in wildly different forms, Diop now asserts her place as a major international auteur. Yesterday, Mubi announced its acquisition of “Dahomey” for multiple territories, including North America and the U.K. Variety‘s Jessica Kiang was among the many critics wowed by Diop’s sophomore feature, writing: “Inserting an inquisitive, imaginative intelligence into this key moment in the troubled timeline of post-imperial cultural politics, [Diop] fashions her superb, short but potent hybrid doc as a slim lever that cracks open the sealed crate of colonial history, sending a hundred of its associated erasures and injustices tumbling into the light.”
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In a lengthy, exactingly written speech, a visibly moved Diop stated that the award “not only honors me, but entire visible and invisible community that the film represents.” She continued: “The first time I imagined what a restitution might look like in reality, I first heard a sound, a frequency, something trembling like an earthquake … it was the sound of a wall collapsing, a wall of silence, a wall of denial, that each and every one of can and must together tear down. To rebuild, we must first restitute. And what does restitution mean? To do justice.” She concluded by dedicating her award to “all the women and the men who have paved the way, to those who today contribute to making our story, our history, our singular beauty and our power heard.”
In a ceremony otherwise dominated by world cinema, English-language performers took the festival’s two gender-neutral acting prizes, with erstwhile Marvel star Sebastian Stan taking Best Leading Performance for his dazzling change-of-pace turn in U.S. director Aaron Schimberg’s provocative, Sundance-premiered black comedy “A Different Man,” playing a man with neurofibromatosis whose life falls apart following a miracle cure. Stan becomes the first male performer to win at Berlin since the festival degendered its acting awards three years ago. Accepting the prize, he thanked the jury for recognizing “a story not only about acceptance, identity and self-truth, but about disfigurement and disability, subject matter that has been long overlooked by our own bias, uncomfortability and projection.”
Two-time Oscar nominee Emily Watson won the supporting award for her chilling performance in the festival opener “Small Things Like These,” playing a mother superior concealing Magdalene laundry abuses in 1980s Ireland. Accepting her award, the British actor thanked her co-star Cillian Murphy — the film’s lead and producer — for including her in his passion project. “I had a front-row seat watching Cillian Murphy unravel, and it was truly a privilege,” she said. “He had a dream that I was going to be in the movie, and here I am.”
Though most winners took on heavyweight subjects, the jury also found room to honor filmmakers taking a lighter, more playful approach. Veteran Korean director Hong Sangsoo — who competed at Berlin in three consecutive years from 2020 to 2022, taking prizes each time — was a winner yet again, landing the Grand Jury Prize (the festival’s second-highest honor) for his breezy, elliptical character comedy “A Traveler’s Needs,” which stars Isabelle Huppert as a Frenchwoman mysteriously adrift in Seoul. Hong was typically droll in his acceptance: “I’d like to thank the jury — I don’t know what you saw in the film. I’m curious to know. It’s too much.”
But it was offbeat French auteur Bruno Dumont who outquirked everyone at the ceremony, accepting the Jury Prize for his eccentric, critically divisive science-fiction farce “The Empire.” Nodding to current industry anxities, Dumont prankishly accepted his award via A.I. technology, giving over his own speech to a bot-read statement read through this phone, twice over. “A cinema film has no sex, a cinema film has no skin colour, a cinema film is a cinema film,” recited the synthetic voice — and who can disagree? Dumont’s film arguably wasn’t the strangest to take a prize, however: Best Director went to Dominican helmer Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias for his experimental feature “Pepe,” a loosely fact-based story of a rogue hippopotamus escaping Pablo Escobar’s compound that becomes, in the words of Kiang, “an uncategorizably odd journey down the river of [the director’s] noodling, needling imagination.”
Nyong’o’s jury — which included directors Christian Petzold, Albert Serra, Brady Corbet and Ann Hui, plus actor Jasmine Trinca and Ukrainian author Oksana Zabuzhko — also presented the Best Screenplay prize to German director Matthias Glasner for his intense three-hour family tragedy “Dying,” while Austrian cinematographer Martin Gschlacht took the Outstanding Artistic Contribution award for his painterly lensing of historical psychodrama “The Devil’s Bath.”
“Dahomey” wasn’t the only documentary to take the top prize in its section, meanwhile, as Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell’s film “Direct Action” came out on top in the festival’s Encounters competition. A punchy study of a collective of French environmental activists labeled “eco-terrorists” by the authorities they resist, the film also earned a special mention from the festival’s separate Berlinale Documentary Award jury.
It was beaten to that prize by one of the night’s most popular and topical winners: “No Other Land,” a devastating on-the-ground study of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation, directed by a four-person Palestinian-Israeli collective, which juror Thomas Heise described as “[showing] us the how inhuman, ignorant politics of the Israeli government consciously wreak havoc.” He continued: “Bearing witness and doing this responsibly and precisely — that is the true basis of any documentary film.” Accepting the award, the film’s Palestinian subject and co-director Basel Adra said: “It’s hard for me to celebrate when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered in Gaza,” before calling on other nations to “respect the UN calls and stop sending weapons to Israel.”
It was a win and speech that encapsulated the mood of the night, as many winners and jurors alike took advantage of their platform to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. American director Eliza Hittman, a member of the Best First Feature jury, paraphrased Mark Twain in her own presentation, after underlining both her Jewish identity and her anti-war stance: “There is no just war, and the more people try to convince themselves there’s a just war, the more they commit a grotesque act of self-deception.”
Such statements landed particularly emphatically at the end of a festival that has weathered much outside criticism for failing to take a formal stand on the conflict — but nonetheless invited films and talent that were always likely to be significantly more outspoken. Accepting her award, Emily Watson spoke for many onlookers as she professed herself emotionally overwhelmed: “Being in the quivering presence of so many properly angry young filmmakers is just amazing.” The dominance of nonfiction cinema at this year’s edition, meanwhile, felt indicative of a restless mood in the industry, a reluctance to turn away from a world on fire to the comforts of escapism, as artists reckon with their platform and their privilege, and how best to use them.
Full list of winners:
COMPETITION
Golden Bear for Best Film: “Dahomey,” Mati Diop
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize: “A Traveler’s Needs,” Hong Sangsoo
Silver Bear Jury Prize: “The Empire,” Bruno Dumont
Silver Bear for Best Director: “Pepe,” Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias
Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance: “A Different Man,” Sebastian Stan
Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance: “Small Things Like These,” Emily Watson
Silver Bear for Best Screenplay: “Dying,” Matthias Glasner
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution: “The Devil’s Bath,” Martin Gschlacht, cinematography
ENCOUNTERS
Best Film: “Direct Action,” Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell
Best Director: “Cidade; Campo,” Juliana Rojas
Special Jury Award: (ex aequo) “The Great Yawn of History,” Aliyar Rasti; “Some Rain Must Fall,” Qiu Yang
BERLINALE DOCUMENTARY AWARD
Best Documentary: “No Other Land,” Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Special Mention: “Direct Action,” Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell
GWFF BEST FIRST FEATURE
Best First Feature: “Cu Li Never Cries,” Phạm Ngọc Lân
BERLINALE SHORTS
Golden Bear: “An Odd Turn,” Francisco Lezama
Silver Bear: “Remains of the Hot Day,” Wenqian Zhang
Special Mention: “That’s All From Me,” Eva Könnemann
Awards previously announced:
PANORAMA AWARDS
Panorama Audience Award: “Memories of a Burning Body,” Antonella Sudasassi Furniss
Second Prize: “Crossing,” Levan Akin
Third Prize: “All Shall Be Well,” Ray Yeung
Panorama Documentary Audience Award: “No Other Land,” Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Second Prize: “My Stolen Planet,” Farahnaz Sharifi
Third Prize: “Teaches of Peaches,” Philipp Fussenegger, Judy Landkammer
GENERATION AWARDS
Generation International Jury
Grand Prix for Best Film in Generation 14plus: “Who By Fire,” Philippe Lesage
Special Mention: “Maydegol,” Sarvnaz Alambeigi
Special Prize for Best Short Film in Generation 14plus: “A Bird Flew,” Leinad Pájaro De la Hoz
Special Mention: “Songs of Love and Hate,” Saurav Ghimire
Grand Prix for Best Film in Generation Kplus: “Reinas,” Klaudia Reynicke
Special Mention: “Through Rocks and Clouds,” Franco García Becerra
Special Prize for Best Short Film in Generation Kplus: “A Summer’s End Poem,” Lam Can-zhao
Special Mention: “Uli,” Mariana Gil Ríos
Youth Jury Generation 14plus
Crystal Bear for Best Film: “Last Swim,” Sasha Nathwani
Special Mention: “She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones,” Qu Youjia
Crystal Bear for Best Short Film: “Cura Sana,” Lucía G. Romero
Special Mention: “Lapso,” Caroline Cavalcanti
Children’s Jury Generation Kplus
Crystal Bear for Best Film: “It’s Okay!,” Kim Hye-young
Special Mention: “Young Hearts,” Anthony Schatteman
Crystal Bear for Best Short Film: “Butterfly,” Florence Miailhe
Special Mention: “Soukun,” Dina Naser
INDEPENDENT JURY PRIZES
Ecumenical Jury Prizes
Competition: “My Favorite Cake,” Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha
Panorama: “Sex,” Dag Johan Haugerud
Forum: “Maria’s Silence,” Dāvis Sīmanis
Special Mention: “Intercepted,” Oksana Karpovych
FIPRESCI Jury Prizes
Competition: “My Favorite Cake,” Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha
Encounters: “Sleep With Your Eyes Open,” Nele Wohlatz
Panorama: “Faruk,” Aslı Özge
Forum: “The Human Hibernation,” Anna Cornudella Castro
Teddy Awards
Best Feature Film: “All Shall Be Well,” Ray Yeung
Best Documentary/Essay Film: “Teaches of Peaches,” Philipp Fussenegger, Judy Landkammer
Best Short Film: “Grandmamauntsistercat,” Zuza Banasińska
Jury Award: “Crossing,” Levan Akin
Special Teddy Award: Lothar Lambert
CICAE Art Cinema Award
Panorama: “Sex,” Dag Johan Haugerud
Forum: “Shahid,” Narges Kalhor
Guild Film Prize: “Dying,” Matthias Glasner
Label Europa Cinemas: “Sex,” Dag Johan Haugerud
Caligari Film Prize: “Shahid,” Narges Kalhor
Peace Film Prize: “Favoriten,” Ruth Beckermann
Amnesty International Film Award: “The Strangers’ Case,” Brandt Andersen
Heiner Carow Prize: “Ivo,” Eva Trobisch
AG-Kino Gilde Cinema Vision 14Plus: “Last Swim,” Sasha Nathwani
Special Mention: “Disco Afrika: A Malagasy Story,” Luck Razanajaona
OTHER PRIZES
Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Jury Award: “Dying,” Matthias Glasner
Tagesspiegel Readers’ Jury Award: “A Family,” Christine Angot
DEVELOPMENT AWARDS
Kompagnon Fellowship: “The Shore,” Vladimir Beck; “Traversée,” Tizian Stromp Zargari
Artekino International Award: “Ich bin Marika,” Hajni Kis
Eurimages Co-Production Development Award: “Screaming Girl,” Antonio Lukich
VFF Talent Highlight Award: “Silence Sometimes,” Álvaro Robles
Honorable Mentions: “Astana Internet Stars,” Assel Aushakimova; “More Than a Hug,” Liselotte Persson
Talents Footprints (Masterd Enablement Program): “Radioxity Stop Motion Animation Academy,” Esther Kemi Gbadamosi; “Return to the Source: Film Workshop & Residency Programme,” Perivi John Katjavivi
Alumni Projects: “UnderCurrent,” Shuchi Talati; “Sunshine Cinema,” Sydelle Willow Smith
