The top award at the Berlin film festival went to Mati Diop’s Franco-Senegalese documentary “Dahomey,” which explores the complex problems surrounding Europe’s return of looted treasures to Africa.
At a glamorous ceremony, Kenyan-Mexican Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o—the first black jury president of the 74th annual event—announced the seven-member panel’s selection among 20 Golden Bear award contenders.
Diop said the prize “not only honours me but the entire visible and invisible community that the film represents. “To rebuild we must first restitute, and what does restitution mean? To restitute is to do justice,” she added.
South Korean arthouse favourite Hong Sang-soo captured the runner-up Grand Jury Prize for ‘A Traveller’s Needs’, his third collaboration with French screen legend Isabelle Huppert. Hong, a frequent guest at the 11-day festival, thanked the jury, joking “I don’t know what you saw in this film”.
The Empire, a space conflict between good and evil that takes place in a French fishing village, won the third-place Jury Prize, which was accepted by French director Bruno Dumont.
The mysterious documentary “Pepe,” directed by Dominican filmmaker Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, won best director for its portrayal of the ghost of the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar’s hippopotamus.
