At the end of a fantastic ten days, the awards of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival have been dished out in the German capital with the prestigious Golden Bear going to filmmaker Mati Diop and her film Dahomey. The Golden Bear, the first to be awarded to a black filmmaker in the festival’s history, is about the return of 26 royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey from Paris to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin.
MUBI has acquired the rights to the film for both the UK and the United States, among other territories.
On the night Diop had the following to say when she collected her award:
“To restitute is to do justice, we can either get rid of the past as an unpleasant burden that only hinders our evolution, or we can take the responsibility and use it as the basis for moving forward. We have to choose.”
Kenyan-Mexican actor Lupita Nyong’o was president of this year’s jury.
Elsewhere, the runner-up prize, the Silver Bear Grand Jury went to Korean filmmaker Hong Sansoo’s Yeohaengjaui pilyo (A Traveler’s Needs), while the Silver Bear Jury Prize was awarded to Bruno Dumont’s L’Empire.
Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias scooped the Best Director award for Pepe, while the two main acting awards went to two performances in the English language. Sebastian Stan landed the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance for his work on A24’s A Different Man (read our review here) and Britain’s own Emily Watson won the Silver Bear for Supporting Performance for the Cillian Murphy-led and co-produced Small Things Like These, the film which opened the festival ten days ago.
Best Screenplay went to Matthias Glasner for Sterben (Dying), while Martin Gschlacht bagged the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution for his cinematography on Des Teufels Bad (The Devil’s Bath).
Martin Scorsese was awarded the honourary Golden Bear earlier in the week at a special ceremony. Details of the other award winners from this year’s festival can be found here.
