76th Berlinale – Award Ceremony   How Political Can Cinema Be? The Berlinale Struggles to Find Its Stance

Award-winning films about power, identity and violence – and a gala overshadowed by controversy. The Golden Bear for “Yellow Letters” seems like a plea for politics in storytelling.

There was excitement in the air at this award ceremony: when the Silver and Golden Bears were presented at the Berlinale Palast, ten days of festival culminated – and with them a debate that was more persistent than some of the films in competition: how political should the Berlin International Film Festival actually be? The answer that evening was multifaceted.

Golden Bear for Political Drama “Yellow Letters”

The Golden Bear went to Yellow Letters by İlker Çatak – a political drama that does not make a big deal of its message.  It tells the story of a Turkish artist couple who come under increasing pressure from the state. Shot in Berlin and Hamburg, set in Turkey, the film combines a precise study of relationships with a political parable. It is about fear, about courage – and about the question of how much resistance a person can endure when the space for dissent becomes increasingly smaller. Jury president Wim Wenders spoke of a “premonition” – a glimpse into a future that could possibly happen “in our countries” as well. That is very aptly put. For Çatak is less interested in the escalations of daily politics than in the structures of power.

The fact that the last time a German director won the main prize was in 2004 with Fatih Akin and Gegen die Wand (Head-On) shows how special this decision is. And yet Yellow Letters was not without controversy – We Are All Strangers, Anthony Chen's social portrait set in Singapore, was considered by many to be the favourite. Perhaps Çatak's film is not the most formally daring in the competition. But it is one that stays with you because it understands political threat as an existential experience.

A politically Aware Generation

The other award winners also fit into the picture of a politically aware generation. Sandra Hüller received the Silver Bear for her leading role in the Austrian-German co-production Rose by Markus Schleinzer. Twenty years after her Berlinale breakthrough with Requiem, she has come full circle. In Rose, she plays a woman in the 17th century who pretends to be a man in order to lead a self-determined life. A historical film? Yes. But one that deals with questions of identity and gender roles in such a contemporary way that it almost hurts. Hüller carries this with an intensity that lifts the film far beyond its setting. The Grand Jury Prize went to Salvation (Kurtuluş) by Emin Alper, an escalating feud between two mountain villages – Western overtones included. This, too, is political art: a parable about spirals of violence, hardened fronts and communities.

The jury prize went to Queen at Sea by Lance Hammer, a quiet drama about dementia. Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall play an elderly couple with touching naturalness – and were honoured as best supporting actors for their performances. Here, too, it becomes clear that politics often lies in the private sphere, in our society's willingness to enable dignified ageing.

The Festival as an Echo Chamber for a Polarised World

As expected, this gala was once again a stage for real conflicts. Lebanese director Marie-Rose Osta (Best Short Film Someday a Child) commemorated victims in her region. Syrian-Palestinian director Abdallah Alkhatib (Best Feature Film Debut for Chronicles From the Siege) used his acceptance speech to level sharp accusations at the German government in connection with the Gaza war. Applause was mixed with boos, and Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider left the hall.

Even before the event, filmmakers had repeatedly been asked about their stance on the Gaza war at press conferences. An open letter signed by Tilda Swinton, among others, accused the festival of “institutional silence”. Artistic director Tricia Tuttle defended the Berlinale as an open space for debate: “A festival is a place where artists can speak, and sometimes they speak in ways that are uncomfortable or controversial, but it's important that we provide that space,” she said at the gala. And Wim Wenders argued against pitting the languages of activism and cinema against each other.

Must a Festival Take a Stand?

This is the crux of the controversy: must a festival, must filmmakers take a stand – or is it enough to let the films speak for themselves? None of the award-winning competition entries explicitly addressed the Gaza War. And yet many revolved around power, violence, identity and memory.

Admittedly, it was not a consistently strong competition. Some of the 22 entries will be quickly forgotten. In Rosebush Pruning, the star-studded cast – including Pamela Anderson and Elle Fanning – seemed almost more important than the film itself. The festival needs glamour, no question. But above all, it needs relevance.

In What Way Is a Festival Political?

Perhaps the political quality of this Berlinale lies precisely in its ability to tolerate complexity. At a time when positions are often condensed into a few words, many of the award-winning films focused on nuances.

The 76th Berlinale has made a process visible: the struggle for openness, for attitude, without reducing art to a mere statement. It did not go smoothly. But in the end, the focus was on films that show what cinema can achieve: generating empathy, making power relations visible, bringing historical material into the present. A festival needs attitude. The decisive factor is how it shows it.

February 2026