Turkish film 'Bal' wins top prize at Berlin Film Festival
Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu's feature film 'Bal' (Honey) bagged the top Golden Bear for Best Film prize at the 60th Berlin International film Festival.
The film, which tells the story about a young boy's search deep inside a forest for his missing father, a beekeeper, was adjudged the best film at the festival, which concluded Saturday night. 'Bal' was among the 20 films competing for the top honours.
The ten-day film festival's Grand Prize of the Jury a silver Bear, was given by the nine-member jury headed by veteran director Werner Herzog to the Rumanian competition entry 'If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle' directed by Florian Serban.
The debut feature film by Serban tells the story of a 17-year-old boy nearing the end of his term in a prison for young offenders. When a group of students visit him in the prison, he takes one of the girls hostage and tries to escape - five days before his scheduled release.
The silver Bear for the best direction was awarded by the jury to veteran French director Roman Polanski for his film 'The Ghost Writer'. This adaptation of Robert Harris' political thriller is about a ghost writer brought in to write a memoir of a former British prime minister who discovers a global conspiracy that puts his life in danger.
'The Ghost Writer' had generated considerable interest at the film festival, especially because of the director's arrest in Switzerland last September and his on-going extradition trial on decades' old charges of sex abuse.
The silver Bear for the best actress was won by Japanese actress Shinobu Terajima for her role as the wife of a disabled war veteran in the Japanese film 'Caterpillar' by Koji Wakamatsu, which is set in the background of the second Sino-Japanese war.
Grigori Dobrygin and Sergei Puskepalis shared the silver Bear for the best actor for their roles in the Russian film 'How I Ended This Summer' by Alexei Popogrebsky. The film is about two men living at a remote research base in the Arctic.
Pavel Kostomarov, the cameraman of 'How I Ended This Summer' received the silver Bear for outstanding artistic achievement.
The silver Bear for the best screenplay was given by the jury to Wang Quan'an and Na Jin who wrote the screenplay for the Chinese film 'Tuan Yuan' (Apart Together). Wang Quan'an is also the director of the festival opener, which is about the reunion between a former Chinese soldier from Taiwan and his girl friend 50 years after their separation.
This year's Alfred Bauer Prize instituted in honour of the founder of the Berlin Film Festival for a contribution which opens new perspectives for cinematic art was awarded by the jury to Florian Serban's debut film 'If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle'.
The jury's prize for the best debut film endowed with a cash award of Euro 50,000 was given to 'Sebbe' by Babak Najaf, a Swedish film about the tragic relationship between a mother and her son, which was shown in the children's and youth films section 'Generation 14 plus'.
The Golden Camera award was won by Japanese director Yoji Yamada whose film 'Otouto' (About Her Brother) was the Berlinale's closing film.
