Berlin results

[janine.hansen at gmx.de]

Big surprise at the Berlinale!

Spirited Away won the Golden Bear award together with the British-Irish
coproduction Bloody 
Sunday!

At the press conference most journalists seemed really surprised. Surely
nobody had expected an 
animated film to walk away with the Golden Bear. I think it's the first time
ever for an anime to win 
anything at Berlin.

But it is not the first time that the award is shared by two films, in fact,
the only other Japanese film 
to ever win a Golden Bear award also had to share its bear. That was Imai
Tadashi's Bushido 
zankoku monogatari back in 1963.

Now I am really looking forward to the press reaction over here. I never
thought Spirited Away 
would be included in the competition at all. I mean, it's not exactly a new
film, is it? As far as I know 
it had until now been the Berlinale's policy to show films in the
competition before or during their 
theatrical release but not after they became an all-time box office hit at
home. . . So there may be 
some criticism on this issue. There have been many exceptions to this rule
before, I know, but 
maybe this is another change that the new festival director is bringing
about?

The only other prize-winning Japanese film was Alexei to izumi. It was
awarded the local Berliner 
Zeitung reader's prize for films shown in the Forum. Alexei to izumi also
got an honourable mention 
from the FICC Jury.

Another honourable mention -- it came from the International Confederation
of Art Cinemas -- went 
to All about Lily Chou Chou.

Personally, I was very glad to see Spirited Away win the Golden Bear. It is
such a marvelous film! 
And it seemed especially outstanding among the rest of the Japanese films
here at Berlin which I 
found rather disappointing. But that is for the feature films only, I did
like the documentaries. 
Though "like" is certainly no appropriate word for a film as shocking as
Kami no kotachi (God's 
children).

Any other comments on this year's Be

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