Canada made big waves at this year’s Berlinale (February 7 to 17, 2019), with awards, screenings, premieres, and more. Here’s your recap of the festival’s highlights, complete with video reports featuring the filmmakers themselves.

And the award goes to…

Canadians are flying home with awards tucked in their suitcases this year, with two Crystal Bears awarded to our filmmakers in the festival’s Generation Kplus section. Quebecers  Geneviève Dulude-De Celles took home a Crystal Bear for Best Film for A colony (Une colonie), while Sandrine Brodeur-Desrosiers also earned a Crystal Bear for Best Short Film for Just Me and You (Juste moi et toi). Also, the Audi Short Film Award went to Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca’s Rise, a Brazil-U.S.-Canada coproduction commissioned by Art Gallery of York University and in collaboration with RISE Edutainment.

And finally, the Canadian supported production Midnight Traveler by Hassan Fazili was awarded a Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury. The film was financed through the Hot Docs’ CrossCurrents Doc Fund.

Canadian talent in the spotlight in Berlin

Opening the 69th Berlin International Film Festival was The Kindness of Strangers, a Canadian coproduction with Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and France. Directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig, Canadian actor Jay Baruchel is among its stars. Here’s your inside scoop on this flick: https://bit.ly/2T6R92Y

The spotlight was also on Denis Côté who was presenting his latest, Ghost Town Anthology, in official competition.

Also turning heads at the Berlinale were the following Canadian films, which showcased the talent and diversity of our storytellers and audiovisual industry:

Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, Edward Burtynsky’s Anthropocene: The Human Epoch

Burak Çevik’s Belonging

Denis Côté’s Ghost Town Anthology

Gariné Torossian’s Girl From Moush

Ariane Louis-Seize’s Little Waves

Maryam Zarei’s Magralen

Sofia Bohdanowicz, Deragh Campbell’s MS Slavic 7

Christina Battle’s Notes to Self

Pierre Garcia-Rennes’s Oh Crow! Oh Crow!

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn’s The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open

Evan Calder Williams and Anne Low’s The Fine Thread of Deviation

Maya Gallus’s The Heat: A Kitchen (R)evolution

John Greyson’s The Making of Monsters

Yen-Chao Lin’s The Spirit Keepers of Makuta’ay

Igor Drljaca’s The Stone Speakers

For more about these projects, and to learn why the Berlin International Film Festival presented such an awesome opportunity for Canadian filmmakers, check out this video.