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Berlin film festival to drop gender distinctions in awards

There will be no more separate Silver Bear awards for best actor and best actress at the Berlin film festival in future, organisers announced Monday, saying they want to eliminate forms of hierarchy between men and women.

Published: 24 August 2020 19:07 CEST

Berlin film festival to drop gender distinctions in awards

Archive photo shows a Berlinale prize being presented in 2016. Photo: DPA

From next year, the German capital's Berlinale will only crown the best performances in a leading and a supporting role.

The announcement follows years in which the film world has been shaken by MeToo sexual abuse and harassment scandals that spread far beyond Hollywood.

An end to sex-separated awards represents “a signal for a more gender-sensitive awareness in the film industry,” the two festival directors Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian said in a statement.

Alongside the Cannes and Venice film festivals, the Berlinale is one of the European highlights of the annual cinema industry calendar.

READ ALSO: Berlin film fest rolls out red carpet for women trailblazers

Cannes still singles out a best actor and actress, while Venice awards a Volpi cup to actors of each sex.

Taking place in February, this year's Berlinale was squeezed in before coronavirus restrictions slammed down across much of Europe, while Cannes had to be called off.

Venice's festival will go ahead next week under strict infection control measures.

Next year's Berlinale is planned to take place “physically” from February 11th-21st, with measures “ensuring the greatest possibility for all guests”, the organisers said.

But changes in “the festival structure, the film programming and the total number of invited films” will be revealed in the coming weeks, they added.

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FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award.

FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award. Photo: FRANCK FIFE / AFP

Putellas is the third winner of the prize, following in the footsteps of Ada Hegerberg, who won the inaugural women’s Ballon d’Or in 2018, and United States World Cup star Megan Rapinoe, winner in 2019.

Putellas captained Barcelona to victory in this year’s Champions League, scoring a penalty in the final as her side hammered Chelsea 4-0 in Gothenburg.

She also won a Spanish league and cup double with Barca, the club she joined as a teenager in 2012, and helped her country qualify for the upcoming Women’s Euro in England.

Her Barcelona and Spain teammate Jennifer Hermoso finished second in the voting, with Sam Kerr of Chelsea and Australia coming in third.

It completes an awards double for Putellas, who in August was named player of the year by European football’s governing body UEFA.

But it’s also a huge win for Spain as it’s the first time in 61 years that a Spanish footballer – male or female – is crowned the world’s best footballer of the year, and only the second time in history a Spaniard wins the Ballon d’Or.

Former Spanish midfielder Luis Suárez (not the ex Liverpool and Barça player now at Atlético) was the only Spanish-born footballer to win the award in 1960 while at Inter Milan. Argentinian-born Alfredo Di Stefano, the Real Madrid star who took up Spanish citizenship, also won it in 1959.

Who is Alexia Putellas?

Alexia Putellas grew up dreaming of playing for Barcelona and after clinching the treble of league, cup and Champions League last season, her status as a women’s footballing icon was underlined as she claimed the Ballon d’Or on Monday.

Unlike the men’s side, Barca’s women swept the board last term with the 27-year-old, who wears “Alexia” on the back of her shirt, at the forefront, months before Lionel Messi’s emotional departure.

Attacker Putellas, who turns 28 in February, spent her childhood less than an hour’s car journey from the Camp Nou and she made her first trip to the ground from her hometown of Mollet del Valles, for the Barcelona derby on January 6, 2000.

Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas (R) vies with VfL Wolfsburg's German defender Kathrin Hendrich — Putellas plays as a striker for Barça and Spain. GABRIEL BOUYS / POOL / AFP

Exactly 21 years later she became the first woman in the modern era to score in the stadium, against Espanyol. Her name was engraved in the club’s history from that day forward, but her story started much earlier.

She started playing the sport in school, against boys.

“My mum had enough of me coming home with bruises on my legs, so she signed me up at a club so that I stopped playing during break-time,” Putellas said last year.

So, with her parent’s insistence, she joined Sabadell before being signed by Barca’s academy.

“That’s where things got serious… But you couldn’t envisage, with all one’s power, to make a living from football,” she said.

After less than a year with “her” outfit, she moved across town to Espanyol and made her first-team debut in 2010 before losing to Barca in the final of the Copa de la Reina.

She then headed south for a season at Valencia-based club Levante before returning “home” in July 2012, signing for Barcelona just two months after her father’s death.

In her first term there she helped Barca win the league and cup double, winning the award for player of the match in the final of the latter competition.

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