Romanian director Adina Pintilie’s Touch Me Not, about a woman struggling with intimacy issues and learning to be comfortable with her body, won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale on Saturday.
US filmmaker Wes Anderson took the Silver Bear for his direction of the animated film “Isle of Dogs.”
The surprise win caught Pintilie off guard. “We were not expecting this,” she said, adding that the film’s subject matter, which challenges accepted perceptions of beauty, is “so important.”
The festival jury, headed by German filmmaker Tom Tykwer, spread its awards broadly, but German talent was missing from the winners list despite four prominent titles in competition.
Accepting the award for Anderson, who could not attend the ceremony, Bill Murray quipped, “I never thought I’d go to work as a dog and come home with a bear.” Murray described the German capital as wonderful: “I am very grateful to have been able to spend time here,” and, echoing the John F. Kennedy’s famous line, added,“Ich bin ein Berliner Hund.”
