Romanian drama wins Berlin fest's top prize

L-R: Luminita Gheorghiu (R) played the central role in “Child's Pose”.Romanian director Calin Peter Netzer holds his Golden Bear. Photo: AFP

“Child's Pose”, a mother-son psychodrama set among post-communist Romania's new ruling class, won the Golden Bear top prize at the 63rd Berlin Film Festival last Saturday.
Director Calin Peter Netzer, a member of Romania's renowned new wave in cinema, tells the story of a wealthy and controlling mother who fights to get her son acquitted after he kills a poor teenager with his car.
“I want to thank the jury for this amazing prize, this wonderful prize,” Netzer told the panel led by Wong Kar-wai, adding later at a press conference he was “shell-shocked” by the honour.
The Berlinale, the first major European film festival of the year and typically its most politically minded, handed two prizes to the Bosnian docu-drama “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker”.
Nazif Mujic, the real-life protagonist of the picture about a Roma couple denied life-saving medical treatment, was the surprise winner of the Silver Bear best actor prize.
The ultra-low-budget film also took the runner-up jury prize.
Its director Danis Tanovic, who won an Oscar for his 2001 wartime black comedy “No Man's Land”, said his anger after reading news reports about the couple led him to seek them out.
“I'm so happy for Nazif and his family because the whole point of this film was to try and change their lives and I hope it changes their lives,” he told reporters.
David Gordon Green picked up the Silver Bear best director award for his quirky US buddy picture “Prince Avalanche”, a remake of the 2011 Icelandic film “Either Way”.
The movie, the only comedy among the 19 contenders at the festival, stars Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch as highway maintenance workers in Texas at crossroads in their lives.
Best actress went to Chile's Paulina Garcia for “Gloria”, a feel-good movie about a middle-aged divorcee who refuses to give up on a shot at happiness.
Best screenplay went to “Closed Curtain” by Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi and his long-time collaborator Kambuzia Partovi, a film made in secret in defiance of a ban by the authorities in Tehran.
“It is impossible to stop a thinker and a poet. Their thoughts bear fruit everywhere,” Partovi said, accepting the award because Panahi was not granted permission to travel.
A debut feature from Kazakhstan, the bullying drama “Harmony Lessons”, grabbed a Silver Bear for extraordinary artistic achievement for its cinematographer Aziz Zhambakiyev.