Awards

"Masterfully playing with minimal elements interwoven through a rigorous mise-en-scène punctuated by humour, the director achieves a rich and complex reflection on gender and sexual politics that raises complicated questions of utmost relevance today."

"With a strange and unsettling calm, the film immerses the viewer in a moment where ideals of collectivity and anarchism confront the encroaching powers of capitalism and the erosion of worker’s time. As exacting in its cinematographic decisions, as the watches we see being assembled."

"The encounter of two poets in the autumn of their lives, orchestrated by the director with mischief and a loving yet discerning regard. A playful battle of egos, that doubles as an intimate and moving meditation on language, communication and artistic creation."

Through a masterfully crafted montage, fragments of the lives of young people, seemingly stuck in a controlling and oppressive society emerge. The carefully and minimally constructed narrative is used to draw us cinematically into a feeling of both ecstasy, resistance and hopelessness all at once. The forceful last scene puts us in a vortex of energy, leaving us no choice but to become a part of this world, by transporting us to an empowering communal feeling through the camera’s eye - produced by desires to imagine, trust and resist together.

In seemingly unrelated vignettes, the film moves from the anxiety of a musical performance to the experience of coming to terms with loss. Drama comes from subtle moments experienced by the protagonist, both in reality and in her imaginary reminiscences. With an extraordinary control over the cinematic image, Bruno Ribeiro paints a portrait of an artist who faces loss while struggling between fear and the desire to succeed.

A great protagonist, powerful and vulnerable at the same time, provided us with her captivatingly told, bittersweet story of loss, grief, anger and healing. This film was a rollercoaster ride full of emotions: sometimes sad, sometimes funny, sometimes embarrassing. The music was always most appropriate and appealing. The camera was occasionally stable, yet also shaky. In a word, the film was superb.

A beautiful film led us into an emotional, natural world full of love. The acting performance of the protagonist truly impressed us. The profoundly explored feelings were accompanied by sensitive music.

A taboo subject is finally being addressed. Something which all of mankind knows about, but hardly addresses. Stress, panic and desperation just because you don't have enough money for tampons. That has to change!

A sweet animated film takes us to a fairy tale-like, colourful and yet literally rocky world. It reminds us that home is not necessarily where you were born, but where you have friends.

As many films in this year’s Generation Kplus competition, the winning film deals with the hardships of family life. It is a film with a delicate story full of details about childhood, grief, parenthood and rebuilding a family. The very strong narrative is combined with a stunning cinematography. The sound and the images create a unique atmosphere.

A film full of life, music and endearing characters. Freshness and energy are the main narrative elements, which transfer directly from the screen to the audience.

Through an amazing and poetic cinematography as well as authentic acting, this film tells a story about a boy who uses an ancient tale as a means of empowerment to save his brother. The storytelling was magnetic, mystic and truthful.

A moving film which, utilising the simplest of means, creates an unbelievable closeness and intimacy. The protagonists and the audience are all confronted with pain and memories, albeit in a gentle manner. How do I manage to come to terms with my past without falling apart beneath it? The film answers this question with impressive honesty and directness.

Raw and frighteningly concrete, the film thrusts us into an everyday life that is shaped by a recurring traumatic event. Throughout their common journey, the actors and their characters became our confidants while alternating between hope and disappointment. The film left us speechless and agitated.

Impressive and intimate in its narrative style, this short film convinced us and also prevailed against the strong competition. By virtue of this film, we have gained access to a new reality that we had never encountered before in everyday life. In an impenetrable style, the film examines the influence that repressed memories have on our identity. Long after the end of the film, each one of us had something to think about. We were all touched by this film in a very special way, and now we want to award this with our Crystal Bear for the best short film.

This short film is a work of art! Expressive and rich in contrast to the fast pace of daily life; at the same time observing and value-free, it allows itself the freedom to connect its own self to the images. The film conveys its content in a playful way, mostly without many words, and it invites you to think. Through the interaction of shapes, colours, edges, curves, sections, light and shadows, it clearly stands out from the other films.

The first of two equal Grand Prix goes to a film that effortlessly plunges us into the lives of two ordinary young people, sharing a delicate insight in their emotional growth, while reminding us of the unpredictable and elusive nature of that thing called love.

The film is an intimate lens into some of the darker challenges facing young people today. But its strength is in its universality and strong and authentic performances. It explores the vulnerability of teenage girls at that pivotal moment in their lives when they are neither child nor adult. With moments of lightness and darkness — and a fantastic ending.

When this short film appeared on screen, all of us gasped with delight. The dark theatre was illuminated by brilliant colours, strange kaleidoscopic creatures in trees, hot dog dogs, and a fragile man who ultimately plummets and shatters to pieces. To the filmmakers, we say: Thank you for this trip.

Part of the joy of watching short films is to transport one into new worlds. There is an interesting truth in this film, where it reveals something about young people that feels fresh. It is complex and deep — and taps into a side of life in Australia we don’t usually see on screen.

Part of the joy of watching short films is to transport one into new worlds. There is an interesting truth in this film, where it reveals something about young people that feels fresh. It is complex and deep — and taps into a side of life in Australia we don’t usually see on screen.

“The Golden Bear goes to a film which has that rare and essential quality of a lasting art work. It captures on screen the very content and essence, the mind and body, the values and the raw flesh of our present moment in time. Of this very moment of human existence.
It does so by provoking the spirit of our time (i.e., zeitgeist), by slapping it, by challenging it to a duel. And while doing that, it also challenges this present moment in cinema, shaking, with the same camera movement, our social and our cinematic conventions.
It is an elaborated film as well as a wild one, clever and childish, geometrical and vibrant, imprecise in the best way. It attacks the spectator, evokes disagreement, but leaves no one with a safety distance.”

“In the place where dialogues and words usually end, the dialogues of this film only begin. That’s when they go deeper, so deep that, amazed and troubled, we ask ourselves: How much deeper can it go? The words of Hamaguchi are substance, music, material.
At first it looks almost minor: a man and a woman, sometimes two women, stand in a room with white walls. Then the scene moves forward, and as it advances you feel that the whole universe, including yourself, is standing there with them inside this simple room.”

“In a film, you can draw attention to deep problems by sticking your finger into the wound or showing hope and giving inspiration as how to achieve a positive change. The latter is the strategy that the director of this tenderly powerful documentary chose to follow.
Always keeping the right distance, the film focuses on one of those ‘field workers’ of our society who defines the most formative years of our children, influencing deeply their attitude towards life. As seen through the eyes of the director, this teacher is unique: he reshapes, softens, and makes more human, and through that humanity makes much more efficient a system in crisis — our European educational system.
The film shows how far you can go simply with true respect, sincere communication, and with that magic all great teachers possess: sparking the fire of passion in their students by activating their fantasy.”