Once again a multitalented International Jury will decide who will take home the Golden and the Silver Bears at the Berlinale 2023. 19 films are competing for the awards in this year’s Competition. The winners will be announced at the Berlinale Palast on February 25.
Actor Kristen Stewart will head the jury, as was previously announced. The other members of the jury are actor Golshifteh Farahani (Iran/France), director and writer Valeska Grisebach (Germany), director and screenwriter Radu Jude (Romania), casting director and producer Francine Maisler (USA), director and screenwriter Carla Simón (Spain) and director and producer Johnnie To (Hong Kong, China).
Born in Iran in 1983, Golshifteh Farahani began her acting career as a teenager. When she was just 16, she won Best Actress at the Fajr International Film Festival for her role in The Pear Tree (1998) by Dariush Mehrjui. Later, she was in Bahman Ghobadi’s Half Moon (2006), and in Iran’s submission for the 2008 Academy Awards, M for Mother (2006). Her first appearance at the Berlinale was in 2009, starring in Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly, which won the Silver Bear for Best Director. Since 2009, the actor and musician has been based in Paris, working primarily in French and English language films. Her filmography includes Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies (2008) and Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), Chicken with Plums (2011) by Marjane Satrapi, Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson (2016), Arab Blues (2019) by Manele Labidi, and most recently, Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother and Sister (2022). In 2014, she was nominated for a César Award for her role in Atiq Rahimi’s The Patience Stone (2012).
Ayten Amin, born in Alexandria in 1978, first studied film criticism at the Egyptian Cinema Writers & Critics Association and then film at the American University in Cairo before beginning her career as a director. After the documentary Tahir (2011), which she co-directed, celebrated its world premiere in Venice, she made her feature film debut two years later with Villa 69. With Souad, a Berlinale World Cinema Fund funding project, she was invited to the official selection of the festival in Cannes in 2020 and presented the film at the Berlinale Summer Special in 2021. Souad, which also won an award at the Tribeca Film Festival, represented Egypt in the Oscar race in 2021.
Amin will serve on the the GWFF Best First Feature Award along with programmer Judith Revault d’Allonnes (France) and filmmaker Cyril Schäublin (Switzerland).
The Tel Aviv-born, Berlin-based producer and global content executive Danna Stern works across borders, genres and formats. She founded the Israeli yes Studios, a development and distribution powerhouse for high-end projects. Here she created Israeli series for a global audience, including Fauda (since 2015), Shtisel (2013-2021) and The Devil Next Door (2019), and was responsible for numerous international adaptations, including Your Honor (2020-2023) / Euer Ehren (2022) based on the Israeli original Kvodo (2017) and As We See It (2022) based on the original On the Spectrum (2018). Danna Stern has twice been named one of the “Top 500 Global Media Leaders” by industry magazine Variety.
Stern will serve on the Berlinale Series Award, in collaboration with trade publication Deadline, along with writer and showrunner Mette Heeno (Denmark) and actor André Holland (USA).
Berlinale runs February 16-26 and for more information, you can check out their website here.
