2025 Berlinale: Who won the Golden and Silver Bears?
Norway's "Dreams (Sex Love)" has won the festival's top award. Here's a look at all the winners in the main competition.
Golden Bear: 'Dreams (Sex Love)'
When a 17-year-old falls in love with her female teacher, she documents how their relationship unfolds. From her writings emerges a text of raw honesty that leads to unsuspected reactions from her mother and grandmother. The Norwegian coming-of-age film, directed by Dag Johan Haugerud, won the Berlin International Film Festival's top prize, the Golden Bear.
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize: 'The Blue Trail'
There's a dystopian premise to Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro's lush movie: All elderly people in the country are to be sent to a "colony" to allow the younger generation to prosper. The 77-year-old Tereza (Denise Weinberg) decides to flee her fate through an Amazon river journey. The jury recognized the work with the festival's second top award.
Silver Bear Jury Prize: 'The Message'
The black-and-white road movie, directed by Ivan Fund, is minimalist in terms of plot, but still managed to charm the jury. In "The Message," a young girl has the magical gift of reading the minds' of animals, dead or alive. Her caretakers sell her services to pet owners, traveling across the Argentine countryside in a van. The young actress Anika Bootz is particularly compelling.
Silver Bear for Best Director: 'Living the Land'
"Living the Land" is a family saga spanning four generations of peasants. The observational work also evokes how China's socioeconomic transformations in the 1990s affected ordinary people. The Chinese filmmaker Huo Meng, born in 1984, won the best director award.
Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance: Rose Byrne in 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You'
Parenting can be terrifying, and director Mary Bronstein expresses the additional load that lands on mothers in this feature-length anxiety attack. Rose Byrne offers an exceptional Silver Bear-winning performance as a working mother dealing alone with her daughter's mysterious illness, all while the ceiling of their home literally crashes down on them.
Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance: Andrew Scott in 'Blue Moon'
In "Blue Moon," US director Richard Linklater pays tribute to legendary Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, played by Ethan Hawke. The film is set on the night of the premiere of "Oklahoma!" — the hit musical was the first one his longtime collaborator, Richard Rodgers, created without Hart. Andrew Scott's performance as Rodgers was recognized with a Silver Bear.
Silver Bear for Best Screenplay: 'Kontinental '25'
A bailiff feels extreme guilt when a homeless man she was about to evict from his makeshift shelter dies by suicide. Romanian director Radu Jude, who won the Golden Bear in 2021 with "Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn," returns with a low-budget production that comments on the housing crisis, post-socialist economics, nationalism and the Hungarian minority in Romania.
Silver Bear for an Outstanding Artistic Contribution: 'The Ice Tower'
The film directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic, and starring Marion Cotillard, follows a young girl who lands on the movie set of a production of "The Snow Queen." The jury recognized the entire creative team behind the extremely atmospheric work.