Dissident drama takes top prize at film fest
BERLIN: Dissident Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof on Saturday won the top prize at the Berlin film festival for There Is No Evil, a searingly critical work about the death penalty in his country.
Rasoulof, 48, is currently banned from leaving Iran and was unable to accept the Golden Bear in person.
Accepting the award on his behalf, producer Farzad Pak thanked “the amazing cast and crew who, put their lives in danger to be on this film”.
The film tells four loosely related individual stories about the death penalty in Iran, from the executioner to the families of the victims.
Industry magazine Variety called it Rasoulof’s “most openly critical statement yet”.
Rasoulof was sentenced to a year in prison last year for “attacking the security of the state”, and banned from making films for life.
Speaking to a news conference via mobile phone, the director said his latest film was about “taking responsibility” under despotism.
“You can try to put aside your own responsibility and pass the buck to the government... but (people) can say no,” he said.
The runner-up jury prize went to Eliza Hittman’s teenage abortion drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which had been a favourite among critics.
Sidney Flanigan plays a 17-yearold from Pennsylvania forced to travel to New York in order to abort an unplanned pregnancy.
Hailed for its empathy and emotion, female solidarity is at the heart of the film, in which male characters are marginalised and often predatory.
Audiences and critics were particularly enthralled by an intense, single-shot scene in which Flanigan’s character answers personal questions at a clinic.
“While I was researching this film, I spent a tremendous amount of time inside planned parenthood and other clinics,” said Hittman.
She added that she had been “humbled” by that experience, before addressing the nurses and social workers who work in such clinics.
“I want to thank them for their incredible service to our countries, for protecting the lives and rights of all people with uteruses.”
Hittman’s success came in the wake of a controversy earlier in the festival over jury president Jeremy Irons’ past comments on abortion and women’s rights.
In a 2016 interview with the Guardian, Mr Irons had said abortion “harms a woman” and that the church was
“right to say it was a sin”.
At his opening press conference, the jury head was forced to clarify that he supported “wholeheartedly the right of women to have an abortion should they so decide”.
The debate over women’s representation and the #MeToo movement continued throughout the festival, fuelled in part by news on Monday of Harvey Weinstein’s conviction for rape and sexual assault.