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Top Berlin film festival prize goes to 'Touch me not'

The announcement Saturday came as a surprise: Pintilie’s formally experimental feature was one of the festival’s more divisive entries, partly because of the frankness of some of its sex scenes, and it was not considered a front-runner.

It tells the story of three people — including a fiftysomething woman who recoils at being touched and a man crippled by spinal muscular atrophy — struggling with issues of intimacy. It also won the award for best first feature film.

This was a particularly strong year for German films at the festival, with several homegrown entries, including Christian Petzold’s “Transit,” considered favorites for the major awards. Ultimately, however, they went home empty-handed.

The Silver Bear, or the runner-up prize, went to “Mug,” by Małgorzata Szumowska of Poland. The film, a fable set in rural Poland, focuses on a young man who is seriously injured after an accident on the construction site of the world’s largest Jesus statue. In a nod to the discussions about gender equality that has dominated much of the festival, Szumowska noted in her acceptance speech, “I am so happy I am a female director.”

The award for best actor went to the 23-year-old Frenchman Anthony Bajon, for his live wire performance in “The Prayer” as a recovering drug addict at a Catholic sanctuary in southern France. Ana Brun took home the best actress prize for her role as a middle-aged woman forced to reshape her life after her long-term girlfriend is imprisoned for fraud in “The Heiresses.” The understated film, set in Paraguay, also took home the Alfred Bauer Prize for a feature “that opens new perspectives.”

Wes Anderson won the best director award for “Isle of Dogs,” the festival’s most star-studded competition entry, while the best screenplay award went to Manuel Alcalá and Alonso Ruizpalacios for “Museum,” a Mexican heist film starring Gael García Bernal. The Teddy Award for best gay-themed film was awarded to “Hard Paint,” a Brazilian film about a young man working as a chat-room performer.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

THOMAS ROGERS © 2018 The New York Times

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