Berlin – The 76th Berlinale concluded Saturday night with an awards ceremony overshadowed by impassioned political statements from filmmakers, as the festival struggled to navigate a deepening debate over its role in addressing the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
The ceremony, held at the Berlinale Palast, saw Lebanon’s Marie-Rose Osta accept the Golden Bear for best short film, Someday a Child, and use her acceptance speech to denounce Israeli bombings and what she described as a “collapse of international law.” “In reality children in Gaza, in all of Palestine, and in my Lebanon do not have superpowers to protect them from Israeli bombs,” Osta said, drawing sustained applause. “No child should need superpowers to survive a genocide empowered by veto powers and the collapse of international law…If this Golden Bear means anything, let it mean that Lebanese and Palestinian children are not negotiable.”
The pointed remarks followed weeks of controversy surrounding the festival’s perceived reluctance to take a firm stance on the conflict. Earlier in the festival, jury president Wim Wenders sparked outrage after stating that filmmakers “have to stay out of politics,” a comment widely criticized as advocating neutrality in the face of widespread suffering. The Indian author Arundhati Roy subsequently cancelled her participation in the festival in protest.
Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle acknowledged the tensions in her opening remarks, describing the festival as having “felt raw and fractured,” with many attendees arriving “with grief and anger and urgency about the world that takes place outside the cinema walls.” She affirmed the festival’s commitment to welcoming debate, stating, “If this year has been emotionally charged, that is not a failure of the Berlinale and cinema. That is the Berlinale doing its job and cinema doing its job.”
The political statements continued throughout the evening. Abdallah Alkhatib, winner of the best documentary prize for Chronicles From a Siege, displayed a Palestinian flag onstage and accused the German government of “complicity” in what he termed a “genocide” in Gaza, concluding with a call to “free Palestine from now to the finish of the world!” Luxembourg actress Désirée Nosbusch, hosting the ceremony, attempted to manage the increasingly charged atmosphere, appealing for respect from hecklers and reminding the audience that the artists’ views did not necessarily reflect those of the festival, which receives substantial government funding.
Syrian filmmaker Ameer Fakher Eldin, head of the Berlinale Short Film Jury, attempted to reframe the debate, arguing for artistic complexity and cautioning against reducing artists to “polemical positions.” He stated that a festival should not function “like a parliamentary floor.” Wenders himself addressed the controversy before announcing the competition winners, stating there was an “artificial discrepancy” between those criticizing the Berlinale and the organizers and jury members, adding, “Most of us applaud you.”
The Golden Bear for best film was awarded to Ilker Çatak for Yellow Letters. Other winners included Emin Alper, who received the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize for Salvation, and Sandra Hüller, who won the Silver Bear for best performance for her role in Rose. The festival concluded without any indication of a shift in the German government’s position on the conflict, or a formal response to the criticisms leveled against the Berlinale’s handling of the politically charged atmosphere.
