Jun 08, 2021
Awards Ceremony on June 13 with the Winning Films of the Berlinale Documentary Award and the GWFF Best First Feature Award

On June 13 at 9 pm on Museum Island, the Competition, Berlinale Shorts and Encounters winners - which were already announced in March - will be presented with their awards.

The winning films of the Berlinale Documentary Award - sponsored by rbb - and the GWFF Best First Feature Award have been selected. Both awards will also be presented during the Awards Ceremony on June 13.

Berlinale Documentary Award

The jury, comprised of Argentinian director, producer and scriptwriter Albertina Carri, Syrian producer and head of IDFA Orwa Nyrabia and German-American director and singer Janna Ji Wonders, awards the Berlinale Documentary Award - sponsored by rbb to:

Nous (France)
by Alice Diop, produced by Sophie Salbot

Jury statement:
The feminist principle of writing autobiographically, even if it hurts, redoubled the bet in this film. The “I” becomes a “We” and the We becomes a tempered I which travels the territory with the cadence of uncertainty. Due to Alice Diop’s curiosity about the human condition and her thoughtful language (or: the thoughtfulness in the language), the jury unanimously decided to give her the Berlinale Documentary Award for her film Nous.

Special Mention, Berlinale Documentary Award - sponsored by rbb:

The First 54 Years – An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation (France, Finland, Israel, Germany)
by Avi Mograbi, produced by Camille Laemlé, Serge Lalou

Jury statement:
Cinema can be looked at, but perhaps the most moving cinema is the one that looks at us, and with that look, transfers our very existence to another dimension. With very few visual and auditory resources, a handful of archive images and a profound insistence to tell, with more faith in art than in humanity, this film forces us to look and reflect on land, humans, politics, conscience, and challenges our comfortable understanding. The special mention of the jury goes to The First 54 Years – An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation by Avi Mograbi.

GWFF Best First Feature Award

The jury, comprised of the journalist, critic and film programmer Carmen Gray (New Zealand and United Kingdom), director and curator Azu Nwagbogu (Nigeria) and curator and programmer Wieland Speck (Germany) awards the GWFF Best First Feature Award to:

The Scary of Sixty-First (USA)
by Dasha Nekrasova, produced by Adam Mitchell, Mark Rapaport

Jury statement:
An audacious take on genre cinema that confronts contemporary issues such as global power structures, sexual abuse, conspiracy theories and the dark corners of the internet in a wildly twisted, witty and subversive manner. Perhaps in recognition that polite decorum may no longer be an effective tactic in sparking discourse around these burning issues.

Special Mention, GWFF Best First Feature Award

District Terminal (Iran, Germany)
by Bardia Yadegari, Ehsan Mirhosseini; produced by Farzad Pak, Amin Mirhosseini

Jury statement:
A world of blurry presence and future, framed by drug addiction and physical decay. A situation populated by ancestors, threatened by an avalanche of ruinous waste. Sanity's chance is sought in poetry and analytical collages of historical and political import.

The awards will be presented by the respective juries on June 13 at the Freiluftkino Museumsinsel.

Press Office
June 8, 2021