Berlinale: the Golden Bear at "Alcarras" by the Spaniard Carla Simon and a very feminine prize list
Spanish director and screenwriter Carla Simon kisses her Golden Bear trophy for best film for the film “Alcarras” at the Berlinale 2022. © John MACDOUGALL / AFP
Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow
4 mins
The Berlin International Film Festival delivered its verdict on Wednesday February 16 by awarding the Golden Bear for best film to
Alcarras
by Spanish director Carla Simon.
The very feminine prize list confirms a real paradigm shift in the cinematographic universe.
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The Berlinale 2022 will go down in history as the edition of the female breakthrough.
Seven of the 18 films in competition were directed by women.
And 11 of the 16 Golden or Silver Bears were awarded to women!
Starting with the Golden Bear.
One of the most prestigious trophies in world cinema was won by Spaniard Carla Simon, 35, for
Alcarras
.
A portrait both sensitive and very profound of a family of farmers shaken by the greed of a modernity wishing to replace agricultural land with solar panels.
This cinematographic fresco very committed in favor of small farmers is distinguished by the freshness of the non-professional actors and the delicacy of the camera which makes visible both the fight of this family and “
our dependence on the land
”.
Like the Solé family, the director dedicated her prize “
to the people who cultivate the land… to fill our plates
”.
Already awarded in 2017 at the Berlinale for her first film
Summer 1993
, Carla Simon admitted to considering the Berlin International Film Festival "
like [her] cinema house
" to which she owes everything.
Cannes, Venice and Berlin crown female directors
This declaration of love is also a great reward for the Berlinale, which has courageously maintained a face-to-face festival.
It has thus kept its promise to be at the service of directors and films, despite the Covid pandemic.
This thanks to a reinforced health protocol, with compulsory daily tests even for triple vaccinated festival-goers and the cancellation of all festive meetings.
To reduce the risks as much as possible, the jury saw 18 films in 6 days and all the gala evenings for the film premieres were “sold out”.
The Berlinale thus becomes the third of the biggest festivals to award a woman the highest distinction of the seventh art, after the Palme d'or for
Titan,
female monster film by Frenchwoman
Julia Ducournau
, 38, in Cannes, and the Lion Gold for
L'Événement
, a chronicle of a clandestine abortion in 1960s France, by Frenchwoman
Audrey Diwan
, 42, at the Venice Film Festival.
Without forgetting the Oscar 2021 for
Nomadland
by Chinese-American Chloé Zhao, a story also endowed with a heroine.
Berlin thus confirms a real paradigm shift (which began at the
Venice Film Festival in 2020
) in the cinematographic universe concerning gender, female stories told and generation.
►
To read also:
Berlinale 2022: Rithy Panh's "sensational" dystopia
South Korean Hong Sangsoo, 61, Silver Bear for
The Novelist's Film
(starring two women), and Franco-Cambodian Rithy Panh, 57, Extraordinary Artistic Contribution award for
Everything will be okay
(a film without actors), are practically the only men to receive a very large prize at the Berlinale 2022.
Not to mention that no male actor has received an interpretation award, because the interpretation award has been renamed since 2021 as the award for Best interpretation of a leading role, therefore without gender distinction.
It was awarded to Turkish-born German Meltem Kaptan for her incredible acting in
Rabiye Kurnaz vs.
George W. Bush
, directed by Andreas Dresen whose screenwriter Laila Stieler received the screenplay award.
Natalia López Gallardo, 42, Jury Prize winner, is part of this new generation of directors telling women's stories.
Robe of Gems
features three Mexican women from different generations and social strata marked by such intangible and mysterious violence, but exercised by men.
In this sense, the Frenchwoman Claire Denis, Golden Bear for Best Director for
With Love and Acharement,
appears almost as an exception in this feminine tidal wave, with her 75 years and featuring a traditional male-female couple while
emphasizing that "
this would
not have been possible without actors and actresses like Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon
".
►
To read also:
Berlinale 2022: Claire Denis caresses the explosion of a couple in love
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