Generation, the Berlin Film Festival sidebar for children and youth films, has announced this year’s winners unveiling the picks from both the Generation 14plus (for teen and older viewers) and the youth jury for the Generation Kplus (kids and tweens) sections.
Sasha Nathwani’s coming-of-age drama Last Swim, about an Iranian-British teen confronting a major life decision, took the Crystal Bear for best film in the Generation 14plus section, with Kim Hye-young’s It’s Okay!, about an orphaned young dancer, winning the top prize for Generation Kplus. Both prizes were awarded by youth juries of young filmgoers.
In its statement, the 14plus jury called Last Swim “a story about the beauty of life and of things coming to an end. It is a film that does not shy away from portraying the messy and consuming feelings that can arise when you know your dreams may not be fulfilled. However, it also invites the viewer into the joyful and lively world of a teenager and her friends as they celebrate their youth.”
The Kplus jury said It’s Okay! “took us on a humorous and emotional rollercoaster ride with the courageous protagonist. We witnessed how two very different characters found each other and that life shouldn’t be ruled by perfectionism. We particularly liked the dance sequences, which gave us insights into a culture that was foreign to us.”
Lee Re in ‘It’s Okay!’
©Berlinale Generation
The section’s international jury — headed by Passages and Love is Strange director Ira Sachs, alongside Amjad Abu Alala and Banafshe Hourmazdi —gave its Grand Prix for best film in the Generation 14plus section to Philippe Lesage’s Who by Fire and the top prize for the Kplus section to Klaudia Reynicke’s Reinas.
Who by Fire is a Canadian-set drama following two friends who travel deep into the woods to stay at the isolated estate of an acclaimed film director. Be For Films is handling international sales.
Reinas is set in Peru in the summer of 1992, where two sisters are preparing to escape the country’s political chaos with their mother and emigrate to the U.S.. They are forced to say goodbye to their family, friends and their nation, but also to Carlos, the father who has all but disappeared from their lives. The Yellow Affair is selling Reinas worldwide.
‘Who By Fire’
©Balthazar-Lab
‘Reinas’
Diego-Romero
The international jury called Who by Fire a “deeply original film made by an artist who isn’t afraid to take chances, a work of cinema that seems both very new and also rooted in the history of drama, from Chekhov to Bergman, creating a precise portrait of a particular social milieu; a film full of life’s contradictions – love and hate, maturity and childishness, beauty and violence; a work of art in which the foibles and failures of adult life reflect the troubling futures of the young protagonists.”
The jury praised Reinas for “the acting, the light, the characters, and the story [all] working in tandem and great symmetry” to create “a film of everyday familial life that at the same time gives voice to a country, Peru, and its very specific political history.”
The full list of Generation winners is below.
Winners Generation 14plus
Crystal Bear for the Best Film
Last Swim dir. Sasha Nathwani
Crystal Bear for the Best Short Film
Cura sana dir. Lucía G. Romero
The Grand Prix of the Generation International Jury for the Best Film
Who by Fire dir. Philippe Lesage
The Special Prize of the Generation International Jury for the Best Short Film
Un pájaro voló (A Bird Flew) dir. Leinad Pájaro De la Hoz
Winners Generation Kplus
Crystal Bear for the Best Film
It’s Okay! dir. Kim Hye-young
Crystal Bear for the Best Short Film
Papillon (Butterfly) dir. Florence Miailhe
The Grand Prix of the Generation International Jury for the Best Film
Reinas dir. Klaudia Reynicke
The Special Prize of the Generation International Jury for the Best Short Film
A Summer’s End Poem dir. Lam Can-zhao