Romanian film director Radu Jude won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 65th edition of Berlin International Film Festival for his black and white historical drama Aferim!. Jude shared the prize ex aequo with Malgorzata Szumowska for the film Body.
"If I knew I would win such a prize, I would have been more serious when shooting it," Radu Jude said on the Berlinale stage. He underlined that the prize belongs to the entire team he has worked with in this project and that he wished the Romanian authorities supported more the Romanian quality film in the future.
Titled after an old Turkish word meaning “bravo!”, the story takes place in Wallachia in 1835. Teodor Corban stars as Constadin, a police constable employed by local nobleman boyar Iordache Cindescu (Alexandru Dabija) to recapture Carfin (Cuzin Toma), a fugitive gypsy slave.
Radu Jude is the director of award winning feature films Everybody in Our Family and The Happiest Girl in the World and short films Lamp with a Hat, Alexandra, Shadow of a Cloud, It Passes Through the Wall.
The Golden Bear went to Taxi by Jafar Panahi, while the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize went to El Club by Chilean director Pablo Larraín. 45 Years nabbed both acting awards for Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling. The Silver Bear for script was won by the documentary El botón de nácar from Chilean writer-director Patricio Guzmán. The Silver Bear for cinematography was awarded to Sturla Brandth Grøvlen for his work on Victoria, as well as to Evgeniy Privin and Sergey Mikhalchuk for the Russian film Under Electric Clouds.
The first feature award went to 600 Millas by Gabriel Ripstein and the Alfred Bauer Prize was won by Jayro Bustamante for Ixcanul.
The Romanian film Why Me? by Tudor Giurgiu also premiered in Berlinale, in Panorama Special section.
