BERLINALE 2021 :: Awards The Berlinale adds two more winners to its list
by Marta Bałaga, Cineuropa 09/06/2021
The Berlinale adds two more winners to its list with Alice
Diop’s We and Dasha Nekrasova’s The Scary of Sixty-First.
The films scored the Awards for the Best Berlinale
Documentary and Best First Feature, respectively,
set to be presented during the prizegiving ceremony on 13 June.
Already named Best Film of the Encounters section all the way back in March, Alice Diop’s We has now cast a spell over the jury for the Berlinale Documentary
Award as well. Impressed by her portrayal of the communities in the Parisian suburbs, connected
by the RER B commuter train, Albertina Carri, Orwa Nyrabia and
Janna Ji Wonders chose the French production from among 16 documentary forms
presented at the festival.
We
(Nous) by Alice Diop - trailer official from
Berlin Film Festival 2021
They praised the director’s curiosity about the human condition
and her thoughtful language, as well as arguing, “The feminist principle
of writing autobiographically, even if it hurts, redoubled the bet in this film.” The prize money of
€40,000 will be shared by Diop and
producer Sophie Salbot. Totem
Films handles the movie’s world sales.
The Special Mention went to The First 54 Years – An Abbreviated Manual for
Military Occupation by Avi Mograbi,
produced by Camille Laemlé and Serge Lalou, showing the
Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip through statements
from Israeli soldiers.
“Cinema can be looked at, but
perhaps the most moving cinema is the one that looks at us and, with that look, transfers our very
existence to another dimension,” argued the jurors. “With very
few visual and auditory resources, a handful of archive images and a profound insistence to tell, with
more faith in art than in humanity, this film forces us to look and reflect on land, humans, politics and
conscience, and challenges our comfortable understanding.”
The First 54 Years - An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation | Clip | Berlinale 2021
Finally, the
GWFF Best First Feature Award (and €50,000) was given to the USA’s The Scary of Sixty-First by Dasha Nekrasova, produced by Adam Mitchell and
Mark Rapaport. “An audacious take on genre cinema
that confronts contemporary issues such as global power structures, sexual abuse, conspiracy theories
and the dark corners of the internet in a wildly twisted, witty and subversive manner,” noted
jurors Carmen Gray, Azu Nwagbogu and Wieland
Speck, also noticing District Terminal by Bardia Yadegari and Ehsan Mirhosseini, which was granted a Special
Mention.
These awards, as well as the ones
announced in March, will be presented during the official prizegiving ceremony on 13 June.
Here is the list of the latest winners:
Best Documentary
We - Alice Diop (France)
Special Mention
The First 54 Years – An Abbreviated
Manual for Military Occupation - Avi Mograbi
(France/Finland/Israel/Germany)
GWFF Best First Feature Award
The Scary of Sixty-First - Dasha Nekrasova (USA)
Special Mention
District Terminal - Bardia Yadegari
and Ehsan Mirhosseini (Iran/Germany)