On the penultimate day of the 67th Berlinale, the festival’s nine independent juries announced their picks for this year's best entries. For the juries evaluating the 18 films in the competition main slate, there seemed to be consensus, with “On Body and Soul” (“Testről és lélekről”) by Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi taking main prize from the International Association of Film Critics (FIPRESCI), The Ecumenical Jury and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Jury. Only two other competition titles were honored, Sally Potter’s divisive “The Party,” which walked away with the Guild Film Award and “A Fantastic Woman” (“Una mujer fantástica”) by the Chilean Sebastián Lelio, one of the festival’s best-reviewed films, which the Ecumenical Jury singled out for a special mention.
Traditionally, the independent jury prizes are a poor predictor of the Golden and Silver Bears, which will be awarded tonight by Paul Verhoeven’s International Jury in a star-studded gala this evening. Going into the ceremony, the festival favorite appears to be Aki Kaurismäki’s refugee-themed “The Other Side of Hope,” a film with contemporary relevance for Europe, which could well take top prize in a festival known for its political leanings. It remains to be seen if Enyedi’s unique meditation on love, dreams and slaughterhouses will triumph over titles with a claim to being engagé, either politically (like the Kaurismäki) or socially, like Lelio’s transgender drama.
Despite a few clunkers (Volker Schöndorff’s universally-panned “Return to Montauk” and Oren Moverman’s undercooked and over-seasoned “The Dinner” come to mind), this year’s international competition has been quite robust, with memorable entries from Austria (Josef Hader’s “Wilde Maus”), Romania (Calin Peter Netzer’s intense relationship drama “Ana, Mon Amour”), Senegal (Alain Gomis’s “Félicité”) Brazil (Marcelo Gomes’ colonial drama “Joaquim”), not to mention Agnieszka Holland’s hard-to-categorize hunting thriller “Spoor.” In distributing its eight prizes this evening, the international jury can be expected to spread the love around.