‘Taxi’ wins Golden Bear prize
Print Edition
IRANIAN dissident director Jafar Panahi has won the Golden Bear top prize at the 65th Berlin film festival for “Taxi,” his third movie made in defiance of an official ban.
Panahi, who is banned from travelling abroad and was absent from the festival, appears on screen in the film as a Tehran cab driver, swapping stories with the denizens of the city.
The jury president, Hollywood director Darren Aronofsky, said Panahi had overcome curbs that had the power to “damage the soul of the artist.”
Panahi was represented on stage by his young niece Hana Saeidi, who appears in the film, and she wept openly as she accepted the statuette.
“I’m not able to say anything, I’m too moved,” she said.
The Silver Bear prizes for acting went to Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay for their performances in the British drama “45 Years.”
Rampling noted that her father Godfrey had won a gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and that she had long dreamed of taking “the baton from him.”
“Well, I think this Bear has done the trick,” she said with a smile.
Courtenay later told reporters he was pleased to make a film featuring an older generation.
“There are lots more old actors than there used to be. We all live longer,” he said. “There are bound to be films that reflect that.”
The slow-burn drama by Andrew Haigh shows a couple on the eve of their 45th wedding anniversary whose marriage begins to founder when the husband learns the body of his long-dead first love has resurfaced.
Chilean drama “The Club” by Pablo Larrain about defrocked paedophile priests given refuge from justice by the Roman Catholic Church claimed the runner-up jury prize.
Two filmmakers shared the Silver Bear prize for best director, Romania’s Radu Jude and Malgorzata Szumowska of Poland.
Jude’s “Aferim!” is a black-and-white Balkan Western about a 19th century constable and his son dispatched to track down a runaway gypsy slave. The film explores the roots of contemporary prejudice against Roma.
Szumowska’s “Body” tells the story of a Warsaw widower and his anorexic daughter who seek the help of a therapist who believes she can communicate with the dead.
Chilean documentary “The Pearl Button” by Patricio Guzman, a searing indictment of his country’s brutal history as told through the image of a single relic, won best screenplay.
“Taxi” is the first Iranian film to win the Golden Bear since Asghar Farhadi’s drama of entangled relationships, “A Separation”, in 2011.
The 54-year-old Panahi’s work is celebrated in the world’s arthouses but outlawed in Iran where the government considers his gritty, socially critical productions to be subversive.
Prizes at the 11-day Berlin film festival, which has a reputation for showcasing political cinema, can help propel a picture to global box office success and further honors.
Among award winners last year were “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Boyhood,” both nominated for Oscars later this month.
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