The 74th annual Berlin International Film Festival, usually called the Berlinale, took place between 15 and 25 February 2024 in Berlin, Germany. Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong'o was named the Jury President for the main competition. This year’s Berlinale was Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek’s final edition in charge, following their dismissal in 2023. The festival opened with Tim Mielants' Small Things like These.

Dahomey, directed by French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop, won the Golden Bear, making it the second year in a row that a documentary won the festival's top prize, following On the Adamant's win in 2023. The Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize was awarded to A Traveler's Needs by Hong Sang-soo, and the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance was awarded to Sebastian Stan for A Different Man. American filmmaker Martin Scorsese was awarded with the Honorary Golden Bear.

Background

Iranian Censorship

Shortly before the Iranian film My Favourite Cake was selected for the Main Competition, filmmakers Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moqadam were banned from leaving Iran to attend the Festival, had their passports confiscated, and will face a court trial in relation to their work as artists and filmmakers. The Iranian government decision was met, once again, with international protests, following Golden Bear winners Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof arrests in 2022/2023, and numerous others censorship attempts in the last years.

AFD Uninviting

Amid controversy, Berlinale's directors Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian uninvited representatives of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (German: Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) from attending the festival’s Opening Ceremony Gala. The decision followes further controversies around the party statements in opposition to immigration. An open letter was signed by over 200 German cultural industry professionals expressing outrage with the invitations.

Israel–Hamas War

In the introductory press release for the 2024 festival, Berlinale opted not to mention freedom of speech as one of their core values, despite having done so in the previous year's statement. During the festival, hundreds of past and present Berlinale participants signed open letters criticizing Berlinale's complicity in Germany's censorship of pro-Palestine voices, including over 280 Berlinale Talents alumni, over 190 filmmakers with films in the 2024 festival and over 60 Berlinale contractors. In further protest, John Greyson, Suneil Sanzgiri and Ayo Tsalithaba all withdrew their films from the festival, while Maryam Tafakory, Advik Beni, and Monica Sorelle dropped out of the Berlinale Talents programme and Emilia Beatriz withdrew from the European Film Market. Unlike its response to the public's outrage at the AfD invitation, Berlinale directors remained silent to the demands of their filmmakers, alumni, and contractors in support of Palestine.

Throughout the festival, artists continued to use their platforms to make statements in solidarity with Palestine. On February 16, curators of the Berlinale's Forum Expanded program joined artist's expressions of solidarity, stating, "We, too, want to add our voice and share our concern by expressing that the Forum Expanded curators support the urgent call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza." On February 18, pro-Palestine activists laid down on the front steps of the Gropius Bau drenched in fake blood with a sign reading, “Welcome to the Red Carpet,” while inside the building others unfurled pro-Palestinian banners from the upper floor.

During the Closing Night Ceremony at the Berlinale Palast, on February 25, there were numerous pro-Palestine statements and protests during the red carpet and acceptance speeches, including from Golden Bear winner Mati Diop, and No Other Land Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor. The Teddy Award jury posted a statement in solidarity with Gaza which was met with audience applause as well as loud booing. An Instagram account linked to the Panorama section published an allegedly official statement from the festival organizers, stating "we acknowledge that our silence makes us complicit in Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of Palestine" adding: "From our unresolved Nazi past to our genocidal present – we have always been on the wrong side of history." Minutes later, the Berlinale's main Instagram account stated that the Panorama account was hacked and the posts "do not represent the Berlinale's position", and announced plans to “file criminal charges against unknown persons”.

During No Other Land acceptance speech, after winning the Best Documentary award, co-director Yuval Abraham stated, referring to his Palestinian co-director Basel: "I am under civilian law; Basel is under military law. We live 30 minutes from one another but I have voting rights. Basel does not have voting rights. I am free to move where I want in this land. Basel, like millions of Palestinians, is locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, has to end". Berlin Mayor, Kai Wegner, and numerous other German politicians expressed outrage, calling the closing ceremony statements "anti-Semitic". Germany's minister of state for culture Claudia Roth was criticized for clapping during Basel and Yuval's speech, later she claimed that she was only clapping for the Israeli half of the filmmaking team, and declared that "The statements at the Bears ceremony were shockingly one-sided and characterized by a profound hatred of Israel". While the Festival is mainly funded by the German government, the organizers stated that the "filmmakers' statements were independent and should be accepted as long as they respect the legal framework". Following the ceremony, Abraham said that a right-wing mob in Israel had threatened his family after he was called antisemitic, stating, "The appalling misuse of this word by Germans... to silence Israelis like me who support a ceasefire... empties the word antisemitism of meaning and thus endangers Jews all over the world".

Juries

International Jury - Main Competition

• Lupita Nyong'o, Kenyan-Mexican actress - Jury President
• Brady Corbet, American filmmaker and actor
• Ann Hui, Hong Kong-Chinese filmmaker and actress
• Christian Petzold, German filmmaker
• Jasmine Trinca, Italian actress and filmmaker
• Albert Serra, Spanish filmmaker
• Oksana Zabuzhko, Ukrainian novelist and poet

Encounters Jury

• Lisandro Alonso, Argentine filmmaker
• Denis Côté, Canadian filmmaker
• Tizza Covi, Italian filmmaker

International Jury - Short Film Competition

• Ilker Çatak, German filmmaker
• Xabier Erkizia, Spanish sound artist and researcher
• Jennifer Reeder, American filmmaker, video artist and lecturer

Generation Jury

• Amjad Abu Alala, Sudanese filmmaker
• Banafshe Hourmazdi, Iranian-German actress
• Ira Sachs, American filmmaker

GWFF Best First Feature Award Jury

• Eliza Hittman, American filmmaker
• Andréa Picard, Canadian Senior Film curator at the Toronto International Film Festival and advisor to the Marrakech International Film Festival
• Katrin Pors, Danish producer

Berlinale Documentary Award and Jury

• Abbas Fahdel, Iraqi filmmaker
• Thomas Heise, German filmmaker
• Véréna Paravel, French artist, and anthropologist

Official Sections

Main Competition

The following films were selected for the main competition for the Golden Bear:

Berlinale Special

The following films are selected for the Berlinale Special section:

Encounters

The following films are selected for the Encounters section:

Berlinale Short Film Competition

The following films are selected for the Berlinale's Short Film Competition section:

Panorama

The following films are selected for the Panorama section:

Forum

The following films are selected for the Forum section:

Generation

The following films are selected for the Generation sections:

Berlinale Classics

The following films are selected for the Berlinale Classics section:

Retrospective

The following films are selected for the Retrospective section:

Official Awards

Main Competition

• Golden Bear: Dahomey by Mati Diop
• Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize: A Traveler's Needs by Hong Sang-soo
• Silver Bear Jury Prize: The Empire by Bruno Dumont
• Silver Bear for Best Director: Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias for Pepe
• Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance: Sebastian Stan for A Different Man
• Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance: Emily Watson for Small Things like These
• Silver Bear for Best Screenplay: Matthias Glasner for Dying
• Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution: Martin Gschlacht for The Devil’s Bath (cinematography)

Honorary Golden Bear

• Martin Scorsese

Berlinale Camera

• Edgar Reitz

GWFF Best First Feature Award

• Cu Li Never Cries by Phạm Ngọc Lân

Berlinale Documentary Award

• No Other Land by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
  • Special Mention: Direct Action by Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell

Encounters

• Best Film: Direct Action by Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell
• Best Director: Juliana Rojas for Cidade; Campo
• Special Jury Award:
  • Some Rain Must Fall by Qiu Yang
  • The Great Yawn of History by Aliyar Rasti

Berlinale Short Films Competition

• Golden Bear for Best Short Film: An Odd Turn by Francisco Lezama
• Silver Bear Jury Prize: Remains of the Hot Day by Wenqian Zhang
  • Special Mention: That’s All from Me by Eva Könnemann
• Berlin Short Film Candidate for the European Film Awards: That’s All from Me by Eva Könnemann

Generation

Generation Kplus International Jury

• Grand Prix of the International Jury for the Best Film: Reinas by Klaudia Reynicke
  • Special Mention: Through Rocks and Clouds by Franco García Becerra
• Special Prize of the International Jury for the Best Short Film: A Summer's End Poem by Lam Can-zhao
  • Special Mention: Uli by Mariana Gil Ríos

Generation 14plus International Jury

• Grand Prix of the International Jury for the Best Film: Who by Fire by Philippe Lesage
  • Special Mention: Maydegol by Sarvnaz Alambeigi
• Special Prize of the International Jury for the Best Short Film: A Bird Flew by Leinad Pájaro De la Hoz
  • Special Mention: Songs of Love and Hate by Saurav Ghimire

Children's Jury Generation Kplus

• Crystal Bear for the Best Film: It's Okay! by Kim Hye-young
  • Special Mention: Young Hearts by Anthony Schatteman
• Crystal Bear for the Best Short Film: Butterfly by Florence Miailhe
  • Special Mention: Amplified by Dina Naser

Youth Jury Generation 14plus

• Crystal Bear for the Best Film: Last Swim by Sasha Nathwani
  • Special Mention: She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones by Qu Youjia
• Crystal Bear for the Best Short Film: Cura sana by Lucía G. Romero
  • Special Mention: Lapse by Caroline Cavalcanti

Independent Awards

Panorama Audience Award

Feature film

• 1st place: Memories of a Burning Body by Antonella Sudasassi Furniss
• 2nd place: Crossing by Levan Akin
• 3rd place: All Shall Be Well by Ray Yeung

Documentary

• 1st place: No Other Land by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
• 2nd place: My Stolen Planet by Farahnaz Sharifi
• 3rd place: Teaches of Peaches by Philipp Fussenegger, Judy Landkammer

Teddy Award

• Best Feature Film: All Shall Be Well by Ray Yeung (Panorama)
• Best Documentary/Essay Film: Teaches of Peaches by Philipp Fussenegger, Judy Landkammer (Panorama)
• Best Short Film: Grandmamauntsistercat by Zuza Banasińska (Forum Expanded)
• Teddy Jury Award: Crossing by Levan Akin (Panorama)
• Special Teddy Award: Lothar Lambert

References

External links

• Official website