Boyhood Berlin Film Festival - H 2014
Berlin Film FestivalRichard Linklater‘s Boyhood, a coming-of-age tale shot over 12 years with the same cast, including Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette, has won the top honor from the German Art House Cinemas Guild.
The prize was one of the many from independent juries judging films running at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. The indie juries announced their winners ahead of the Berlinale’s official award ceremony Saturday night.
Boyhood, which premiered at Sundance, is in the competition line-up of this year’s Berlinale and is considered a front-runner for the Golden Bear. In addition to the Cinema Guild prize, Boyhood also won the best film honor voted on by readers of Berlin daily newspaper the Morgenpost.
Another Golden Bear front-runner, the Catholic drama Stations of the Cross from German director Dietrich Bruggemann, took top honors from the Ecumenical Jury, with special mention going to Yann Demange‘s debut drama ’71, which is set in Belfast at the start of the “troubles” between Catholic and Protestant extremists.
The Ecumenical Jury gave another Irish feature, John Michael McDonagh‘s Calvary, its best film honor for a film screening in Berlin’s Panorama section. The drama stars Brendan Gleeson (The Guard) as an innocent priest condemned to death by a man who has been sexually abused and has vowed revenge against the church. Special mention went to Canadian feature Triptych from directors Robert Lepage and Pedro Pires. The prize for a film from Berlin’s experimental Forum sidebar went to Greek feature At Home from director Athanasios Karanikolas.
The international film critics’ Fipresci prizes went to Alain Resnais‘ Life of Riley for best competition entry, to The Way He Looks from director Daniel Ribeiro for best film in the Panorama section and to Forma from Ayumi Sakamoto for best film screening in the Berlinale’s Forum sidebar.
In other honors from Berlin’s indie juries, Jehane Noujaim‘s Oscar-nominated docudrama The Square, about the Egyptian uprising, won the Amnesty International Film Prize; the Dialogue en Perspective prize from the French-German Youth Office went to Anywhere Else from German director Ester Amrami and a Nicole Vogele‘s documentary Fog received a special mention.
Turkish drama The Lamb from veteran director Kutlug Ataman (Lola and Billy the Kid) won the CICAE Art Cinema Award for best film screening in Berlin’s Panorama sidebar while the CICAE prize for best film in the Forum section was awarded to She’s Lost Control from director Anja Marquardt.
The Caligari Film Prize went to The Great Museum from director Johannes Holzhausen. The Made In Germany honor for best film in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino sidebar was awarded ex aequo to director Sandra Kaudelka for Intershop and to Sebastian Mez for 274.
The NETPAC Prize for best Asian entry at the Berlinale was awarded ex aequo to Kelvin Kyung Kun Park‘s A Dream of Iron and Non-fiction Diary from Jung Yoon-suk.
Readers of Berlin daily the Tagesspiegel picked Czech/Slovak drama Velvet Terrorists, from directors Ivan Ostrochovsky, Pavol Pekarcik, and Peter Kerekes, as its top film from Berlin’s Forum sidebar.
The readers of gay city magazine Die Siegessaule, picked Sophie Hyde‘s 52 Tuesdays, a winner at Sundance and of Berlin’s Crystal Bear for best youth film, as it’s top title exploring LGBT themes.
