The political drama by Oscar nominee Ilker Catak took the top award at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Director Ilker Catak accepts the Golden Bear for best film for ‘Yellow Letters’.
Director Ilker Catak accepts the Golden Bear for best film for ‘Yellow Letters’
The Golden Bear, the Berlin International Film Festival’s top prize, was awarded on Saturday to the political drama “Yellow Letters,” by German director Ilker Catak. His previous film, “The Teachers’ Lounge” (2023) was nominated for an Oscar.
Starring Tansu Bicer in the role of a playwright and Ozgu Namal as a famous actress, “Yellow Letters” follows the married artists whose relationship is tested as they get caught in the state’s crosshairs.
The allegory on authoritarian oppression is set in contemporary Turkey, but was shot in Germany, with Berlin and Hamburg taking on the roles of Ankara and Istanbul.
“Yellow Letters” was decidedly the most political of all 22 works in the main competition, an apt conclusion to an event overshadowed by political debates — starting with the festival’s opening press conference, when jury president Wim Wenders said that filmmakers “have to stay out of politics.”
But presenting the award, Wenders also commended the way the film spoke up “very clearly about the political language of totalitarianism as opposed to the empathetic language cinema.”
In his acceptance speech, Catak noted that the autocrats of this world are the ones we should be opposing, not the artists with diverse political opinions: “Let’s not fight each other, let’s fight them,” he said
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