74th Berlinale Awards: Dahomey Wins Golden Bear

The 74th Berlin International Film Festival, the last edition directed by Carlo Chatrian, concluded with a politically charged ceremony. The jury, presided over by Lupita Nyong'o, awarded the Golden Bear for Best Film to Mati Diop's Dahomey, a documentary blending reality and fiction that traces the restitution of artworks by France to the present-day state of Benin, addressing colonial wounds. The Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize went to Hong Sangsoo's A Traveler's Needs, starring Isabelle Huppert as a woman teaching French in Seoul despite lacking qualifications. The Silver Bear Jury Prize was awarded to Bruno Dumont's The Empire, a sci-fi fantasy set in northern France that parodies Star Wars with laser swords and French monuments as spaceships. Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias won Best Director for Pepe. Sebastian Stan won Best Performance for A Different Man, and Emily Watson won Best Supporting Performance for Small Things Like These. The Best Screenplay award went to Matthias Glasner for Sterben. Martin Gschlacht received the Outstanding Artistic Contribution award for The Devil's Bath. The Best Documentary prize went to No Other Land by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor. The festival was notably political, with winners speaking out against war and injustice. Italian entries in competition included Another End by Piero Messina and Gloria! by Margherita Vicario, which were well received.