The top prize of the
\n68th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, the
\nprestigious cinematographic event that dominates the beginning of each year,
\ngoes to a Romanian production for the second time. Adina Pintilie on Saturday
\nnight won the Golden Bear trophy for her film Touch Me Not, as well as the best
\nfirst feature award. Adina Pintilie was visibly touched and surprised when she
\ngot up on the Berlinale stage to receive the top prize. <\/p>\n
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Her film is about
\nintimacy as a fundamental aspect of human existence. A European co-production
\nshot over a period of 10 weeks between 2015 and 2017 and with a mixed cast of
\nprofessional and non-professional actors, Touch Me Not follows a series of
\ncharacters craving intimacy and at the same time being afraid of it. A woman
\nand two men, alone and lost in the cold immensity of the city, come together
\nlooking for authentic human contact. <\/p>\n
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On the border
\nbetween fiction, documentary and visual art, the film had mixed reviews in
\nBerlin. It competed for the Golden Bear alongside 18 other productions, many of
\nwhich were about migration and portraits of artists, despite there being no
\noverarching theme, as noted by Reuters. Touch Me Not was a surprise choice, a
\nfilm that shocked viewers with some explicit scenes, Reuters also notes. The
\nfilm is an invitation to dialogue and to embrace otherness, said Pintilie, who
\nalso admitted that her film may not exactly make for comfortable viewing. We
\nwanted to award prizes not just for what cinema can
\ndo and where it is, but where it could go in the future, said the German director and president of the
\nBerlin Film Festival jury Tom Tykwer,
\nexplaining the jury’s decision. <\/p>\n
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Adina Pintilie’s award comes at a time when Romania is
\nrecognised as a force to be reckoned with in world cinema. The so-called
\nRomanian New Wave started with Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr Lazarescu and was
\nfollowed by Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which won the
\nCannes Festival in 2007, and Calin Peter Netzer’s Child’s Pose, the winner of
\nthe Golden Bear in Berlin five years ago. The list should also include Radu
\nJude’s Aferim!, which received a Silver Bear in 2015. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romanian director Adina Pintilie wins the top prize at the 68th edition of the Berlin Film Festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76659,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[33190,39217],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-76658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-adina-pintilie","tag-berlin-festival"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n