Dahomey, a documentary by Franco-Senegalese director Mati Diop that probes the thorny points surrounding Europe's return of looted antiquities to Africa, gained the highest prize on the Berlin Worldwide Movie Competition.
Kenyan-Mexican Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o introduced the number of the seven-member panel for the Golden Bear award at a gala ceremony within the German capital on Saturday.
Diop mentioned the award “not solely honors me, however your complete seen and invisible group that the movie represents.”
Al Jazeera's Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin, mentioned the documentary “addresses a problem that has been on the forefront of many individuals's minds, not solely within the movie world but in addition throughout Europe .
“DDahomey focuses on the bronzes of Benin and the battle to return these bronzes. The entire precept of restitution, that's what the director Mati Diop referred to to simply accept the award, the Golden Bear on this competition,” he mentioned Kane.
South Korean artist favourite Hong Sang-soo gained the Grand Jury Prize for A Traveller's Wants, his third collaboration with French legend Isabelle Huppert.
Hong, a frequent visitor on the competition, thanked the jury, joking, “I don't know what you noticed on this film.”
French creator Bruno Dumont accepted the third jury prize for The Empire, an intergalactic battle of excellent and evil in a French fishing village.
Dominican filmmaker Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias gained greatest director for Pepe, his enigmatic docudrama that evokes the hippo ghost of late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Marvel film star Sebastian Stan picked up the most effective efficiency Silver Bear for his look within the US satire, A Totally different Man.
Stan performs an actor with neurofibromatosis, a genetic illness that causes disfiguring tumors, who’s cured with a revolutionary medical remedy.
The American Roman star referred to as it “a narrative that isn’t solely about acceptance, id and self-truth, however about disfigurement and incapacity – a topic that has lengthy been uncared for by our personal prejudice “.
'Collusion'
The UK's Emily Watson gained the most effective supporting Silver Bear for her superior flip as a merciless mom in Small Issues Like These.
The movie, starring Cillian Murphy, is about one of many greatest scandals in fashionable Eire: the Magdalene laundry community of Roman Catholic penitentiary homes for “fallen girls”.
She paid tribute to the “1000’s and 1000’s of younger girls whose lives have been devastated by the collusion between the Catholic Church and the Irish State”.
German writer-director Matthias Glasner took residence the Silver Bear for greatest screenplay for his semi-autobiographical tragicomedy, Dying. The three-hour tour de pressure options among the nation's prime actors portraying a dysfunctional household.
The Silver Bear for Excellent Inventive Contribution went to cinematographer Martin Gschlacht for the thrilling Austrian historic horror movie, The Satan's Bathtub. It tells the story of depressed girls within the 18th century who murdered to be executed.
A separate Berlinale Documentary Award went to a Palestinian-Israeli activist collective for, No Different Land, about Palestinians displaced by Israeli troops and settlers within the occupied West Financial institution.
“In accepting the award, the 2 males most concerned on this movie – an Israeli, a Palestinian – each spoke of the necessity for a ceasefire instantly, and it is a thought taken by many different individuals – some award recipients , [and] some individuals presenting awards,” Kane mentioned.
With Li By no means Cries, by the Vietnamese filmmaker Pham Ngoc Lan gained the award for the most effective first movie. The movie tells the story of a girl who returns to Vietnam from Germany with the ashes of her overseas husband.
The very best quick movie went to, An Odd Flip, from Argentina Francisco Lezama a couple of museum safety guard who predicts a rise within the worth of the greenback with a pendulum.
The Berlinale, because the competition is thought, ranks with Cannes and Venice among the many first European cinema showcases.
Final yr, one other documentary introduced residence the golden bear, in France, On the Adamant, a couple of floating day care heart for individuals with psychiatric issues.
