What the Berlinale wins mean for film in 2018
Berlin wrapped another Berlinale this weekend, closing the 68th edition after a run that kept the spotlight on independent voices and political urgency. The Golden Bear landed in an unexpected place, and the surrounding conversation made clear that the festival’s programming choices carried weight beyond the screenings themselves.
The unlikely winner of Berlinale
Touch Me Not took the top prize on the final Saturday night. Adina Pintilie’s first feature is an experimental docudrama that places the director on camera as she interviews people about intimacy, fear, and bodily autonomy. The protagonists include a transgender sex worker and a handicapped man with his able-bodied partner, each describing how they reached comfort in their own skin before the group visits a sex club together. Speaking on her win, Pintilie framed the film as an invitation for viewers to enter a dialogue rather than a conventional narrative. The choice stood out against competition that included Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and Erik Poppe’s U: July 22, prompting immediate questions about what the jury valued most this year.
#MeToo dominates conversations at Berlinale 2018
Dieter Kosslick had already signaled the festival’s priorities before the first screenings. He scheduled panels on sexual assault and discrimination, arranged a counseling corner for attendees, and promised Kosslick promised to program work that addressed urgent political issues. The emphasis produced visible results. Malgorzata Szumowska received the Grand Jury Prize for her satire Mug, while Ana Brun won Best Actress for The Heiresses, a film centered on a lesbian whose partner is imprisoned over mounting debts. The same focus shaped Drama Series Days, where projects that put female characters front & center in the narrative screened alongside one another. The lineup featured the Australian cult classic Picnic at Hanging Rock, Israeli series Sleeping Bears, Germany’s Bad Banks, and Norway’s Heimebane, each built around a powerful and complex female heroine.
Early in the festival, WIFT Germany, WIFT Nordic, and the Swedish Film Institute launched the Speak Up campaign. Szumowska unveiled the movement to the crowds by declaring that the European film industry had united under the banner of Speak Up to ensure harassment would not be tolerated in offices, markets, or festivals. The timing mattered. Citizen later observed that women proved to be the big winners in a year when the #MeToo movement cast a long shadow over the Berlinale.
Berlinale's Evolving Approach to Diversity and Inclusion
The 2018 yearbook framed the edition around #MeToo, diversity, and obstructed views. Kosslick’s earlier motto of Accept Diversity, introduced in 2002, continued to shape programming decisions more than a decade later. Panels and side events examined representation across gender, disability, and sexuality while the main competition tested how far those commitments could stretch when artistic risk and political content arrived in the same package. The approach produced a mixed but consistent signal that the festival intended to treat inclusion as an ongoing structural question rather than a single-year theme.
Critical Reception and Audience Reactions to Touch Me Not
Some viewers left screenings in rows during the premiere. Screen International’s jury grid placed the film near the bottom with a 1.5-star average, most critics awarding a single star. The low marks reflected discomfort with the film’s graphic approach and its blend of documentary and staged scenes. At the same time, defenders noted that the work’s experimental proposition felt genuine even when its methods divided audiences. The gap between jury reaction and critical scoring became part of the story the festival carried into the wider 2018 season.
The Role of First-Time Directors in Major Festival Wins
Pintilie arrived as a first-time feature director. Her win marked the second consecutive year a woman took the Golden Bear, following the 2017 result. The outcome highlighted how rarely debut features claim the top prize at major festivals and how the jury’s decision placed an experimental voice at the center of the conversation. The result also underscored the continued visibility of directors working outside conventional industry pipelines.
Drama Series Days and Female-Led Narratives
The series section expanded the festival’s emphasis on female protagonists beyond the feature competition. Picnic at Hanging Rock revisited a classic through a contemporary lens, Sleeping Bears examined institutional power through its central character, Bad Banks tracked ambition and ethics in finance, and Heimebane followed a female coach navigating a male-dominated sport. Each project positioned its heroine at the narrative core rather than as supporting color. The programming choice aligned with the larger #MeToo emphasis and offered concrete examples of how series storytelling could carry the same thematic weight as features.
Touch Me Not: The right choice for the Golden Bear?
Peter Bradshaw called the win a calamity for the festival in his Guardian review, describing the film as a quasi-fictional documentary essay that left him depressed by its execution. The same low jury-grid scores reinforced the sense that the decision prioritized political resonance over conventional craft. Elizabeth Grenier at DW countered that the choice carried a strong statement amid the #MeToo discussion while still delivering an aesthetically slick work that felt genuine. The debate continued after the awards, with observers noting that the Berlinale’s reputation for favoring social issues had once again shaped the outcome. The Touch Me Not victory kept that tension visible for the rest of the 2018 festival circuit.
