BERLIN: Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi won the Golden Bear top prize at the 65th Berlin film festival Saturday for “Taxi,” his third movie made in defiance of an official ban.
Panahi, who is outlawed from traveling abroad and was absent from the festival, appears on screen in the film as a Tehran cab driver, swapping stories with the denizens of the city.
A mounted dashboard camera allowed him to film in secret, away — at first — from the prying eyes of the state’s authorities.
The jury president, Hollywood director Darren Aronofsky, said Panahi had overcome restrictions that had the power to “damage the soul of the artist.”
“Instead of allowing his spirit to be crushed and giving up, instead of allowing himself to be filled with anger and frustration, Jafar Panahi created a love letter to cinema,” Aronofsky said.
“His film is filled with love for his art, his community, his country and his audience.”
Panahi was represented on stage by his young niece Hana Saeidi, who appears in the film, and she wept openly as she accepted the statuette.
“I’m not able to say anything, I’m too moved,” she said.
The Silver Bear prizes for acting went to Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay for their performances in the British drama “45 Years.”
Rampling noted that her father Godfrey had won a gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and that she had long dreamed of taking “the baton from him.”
“Well, I think this Bear has done the trick,” she said with a smile.
Courtenay later told reporters he was pleased to make a film featuring an older generation.
“There are lots more old actors than there used to be. We all live longer,” he said.
“There are bound to be films that reflect that.”
The slow-burn drama by Andrew Haigh shows a couple on the eve of their 45th wedding anniversary whose marriage begins to founder when the husband learns the body of his long-dead first love has resurfaced.
Chilean drama “The Club” by Pablo Larrain about defrocked paedophile priests given refuge from justice by the Roman Catholic Church claimed the runner-up jury prize.
Iran’s Panahi wins Berlin fest top prize
Iran’s Panahi wins Berlin fest top prize
Fans bid farewell to Japan’s only pandas
TOKYO: Panda lovers in Tokyo said goodbye on Sunday to a hugely popular pair of the bears that are set to return to China, leaving Japan without the beloved animals for the first time in half a century.
Loaned out as part of China’s “panda diplomacy” program, the distinctive black-and-white animals have symbolized friendship between Beijing and Tokyo since the normalization of diplomatic ties in 1972.
Some visitors at Ueno Zoological Gardens were left teary-eyed as they watched Japan’s only two pandas Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao munch on bamboo.
The animals are expected to leave for China on Tuesday following a souring of relations between Asia’s two largest economies.
“I feel like seeing pandas can help create a connection with China too, so in that sense I really would like pandas to come back to Japan again,” said Gen Takahashi, 39, a Tokyo resident who visited the zoo with his wife and their two-year-old daughter.
“Kids love pandas as well, so if we could see them with our own eyes in Japan, I’d definitely want to go.”
The pandas’ abrupt return was announced last month after Japan’s conservative premier Sanae Takaichi hinted Tokyo could intervene militarily in the event of any attack on Taiwan.
Her comment provoked the ire of Beijing, which regards the island as its own territory.
The 4,400 lucky winners of an online lottery took turns viewing the four-year-old twins at Ueno zoo while others gathered nearby, many sporting panda-themed shirts, bags and dolls to celebrate the moment.
Mayuko Sumida traveled several hours from the central Aichi region in the hope of seeing them despite not winning the lottery.
“Even though it’s so big, its movements are really funny-sometimes it even acts kind of like a person,” she said, adding that she was “totally hooked.”
“Japan’s going to be left with zero pandas. It feels kind of sad,” she said.
Their departure might not be politically motivated, but if pandas return to Japan in the future it would symbolize warming relations, said Masaki Ienaga, a professor at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and expert in East Asian international relations.
“In the future...if there are intentions of improving bilateral ties on both sides, it’s possible that (the return of) pandas will be on the table,” he told AFP.
