Top Performers at Berlinale

As part of the 66th Berlin International Film Festival issue, we thought of bringing to our readers the highlight reel of the awardees there. While you have come across some of the big names in the previous pages, this will allow you all an overview of all the big names that came up and received their due recognition by the Berlinale Jury. With illustrious judges, ranging from big shot names to low-key independent ones, and with keen focus on the pressing social issue on the European refugee  crisis, the following movies did not only impress them, but viewers from around the world attending the festival. And the winners are:

Golden Bear for Best Film
Fuocoammare 
(Fire at Sea)

Director: Gianfranco Rosi
Writers: Gianfranco Rosi, Carla Cattani.
Stars: Samuele Caruana, Pietro Bartolo, Samuele Pucillo
Plot: Samuele is 12 years old and lives on an island in the middle of the sea. He goes to school, loves shooting his slingshot and going hunting. He likes land games, even though everything around him speaks of the sea and the men, women and children who try to cross it to get to his island. But his is not an island like the others, its name is Lampedusa and it is the most symbolic border of Europe, crossed by thousands of migrants in the last 20 years in search of freedom.

Silver Bear Best Director
L'Avenir 
(Things to Come)

Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
Writers: Mia Hansen-Løve
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, André Marcon, Roman Kolinka

Plot: Nathalie teaches philosophy at a high school in Paris. She is passionate about her job and particularly enjoys passing on the pleasure of thinking. Married with two children, she divides her time between her family, former students and her very possessive mother. One day, Nathalie's husband announces he is leaving her for another woman. With freedom thrust upon her, Nathalie must reinvent her life.

Silver Bear for Best Actor

Inhebbek Hedi (Hedi)

Director: Mohamed Ben Attia
Writers: Mohamed Ben Attia
Stars: Majd Mastoura, Rym Ben Messaoud, Sabah Bouzouita

Plot: Hedi a young man with great dream is struggling his way through social conventions in Tunisia. While his mother tries to decide his life for him, Hedi meets Rym and suddenly he discovers that his world goes beyond and above conventions.

Silver Bear for Best Actress
Kollektivet 
(The Commune)

Director: Thomas Vinterberg
Writers: Thomas Vinterberg, Tobias Lindholm
Stars: Fares Fares, Ulrich Thomsen, Trine Dyrholm

Plot: A bittersweet story about the clash between personal desires vs. solidarity and tolerance in a Danish commune in the 70's.

Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize

Smrt u 
Sarajevu 
(Death in Sarajevo)

Director: Danis Tanović
Writers: Danis Tanović
Stars: Snezana Markovic, Izudin Bajrovic, Vedrana Seksan

Plot: The mourning of a century's wounds is put on hold as the class struggle is exhumed inside a luxury hotel. Danis Tanovic's film reconfigures and expands the play Hotel Europe by Bernard-Henri Levy, seizing on today's frustrations in the Bosnian capital to reflect on a hundred years of conflict and bloodshed among close neighbours.