Berlinale 2018: The Panorama Audience Awards

The Panorama Audience Awards  go to Profile and The Silence of Others The public has cast its votes:

the 20th Panorama Audience Awards go to Profile by Timur Bekmambetov for best fiction film and The Silence of Others by Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar for best documentary.

The awards are presented by the Berlinale Panorama section in collaboration with radioeins and rbb television (Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting). The prizes for the voting audience are provided courtesy of Mastercard. In Profile, a journalist investigating the recruitment of young women for ISIS falls under the spell of a Jihadist – a story entirely told on a computer screen. Director Timur Bekmambetov has previously been a guest of the Berlinale Special with his films Night Watch (2005) and Day Watch (2007).

In the documentary The Silence of Others, directors Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar tackle the issue of justice in Spain, after a 1977 amnesty law prohibited the prosecution of the regime’s perpetrators. The official award ceremony will be held at 5 pm on Sunday, February 25, in CinemaxX 7 at Potsdamer Platz. The prizes will be awarded by rbb programme director Dr. Jan Schulte-Kellinghaus. Knut Elstermann, radioeins film expert, and Panorama head and curator Paz Lázaro will host the event. Directly after the ceremony, the winning fiction film will be shown.

The Panorama Dokumente winner will be screened at 8 pm, also in CinemaxX 7. The Panorama Audience Award has been given since 1999. Since 2011, not only the best fiction film but also the best documentary films have received awards. During the festival, moviegoers are asked to rate the films shown in Panorama on voting cards after the screenings.

In 2018 a total of 26,000 votes were cast and counted. This year Panorama presented 47 feature-length films from 40 countries, of which 20 screened in the Panorama Dokumente series.

Panorama Audience Award Winner – Fiction Film 2018

USA / United Kingdom / Cyprus / Russian Federation

By Timur Bekmambetov

2nd place Panorama Audience Award – Fiction Film 2018

Styx / Germany / Austria

By Wolfgang Fischer

3rd place Panorama Audience Award – Fiction Film 2018

L‘Animale / Austria 2018

By Katharina Mueckstein

Panorama Audience Award Winner – Panorama Dokumente 2018

The Silence of Others / USA / Spain

By Almudena Carracedo, Robert Bahar

2nd place Panorama Audience Award – Panorama Dokumente 2018

Partisan / Germany

By Lutz Pehnert, Matthias Ehlert, Adama Ulrich

3rd place Panorama Audience Award – Panorama Dokumente 2018

O processo / Brazil / Germany / Netherlands

By Maria Augusta Ramos