Six former winners of the Berlin International Film Festival’s Golden Bear for best film will make up the jury for this year’s event.
Berlin on Monday unveiled the six jurors: Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, last year’s winner for There is No Evil; Nadav Lapid from Israel, whose Synonyms won top honors in 2019; Romanian filmmaker Adina Pintilie, director of controversial 2018 winner Touch Me Not; Hungary’s Ildiko Enyedi, Golden Bear winner for On Body and Soul (2017); Italian filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi, whose refugee documentary Fire at Sea took Berlin’s top prize in 2016; and Bosnia director Jasmila Zbanic, winner for Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams in 2006.
Berlin said there will not be a jury president this year, a festival first. The 71st Berlin festival will be a unique event in any case. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Berlin will be split into two stages. From March 1 through March 5, Berlin will hold an online-only event mainly for the international industry. An in-person festival in the German capital is planned for June 9-June 20.
Festival organizers said the six jury members would view all this year’s competition films on the big screen in Berlin and not via online links.
Berlin will announce this year’s official lineup next week, starting on Monday, Feb. 8 with the Retrospective and Generation selections. The films picked for the Berlinale Shorts, as well as the Forum and Forum Expanded sidebars, will be announced Tuesday, Feb.9. On Wednesday, Feb. 10 Berlin will unspool its selection for the Encounters, Panorama, and Perspektive Deutsches Kino sections.
The main competition and the Berlinale Special lineups will be announced on Thursday, Feb. 11.
