Honorary Golden Bear for Claude Lanzmann at 63rd Berlinale

Claude Lanzmann, French documentary film maker and producer, will be awarded the Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival.

The award ceremony will be inaugurated with the screening of Lanzmann’s film Sobibor, 14 octobre 1943, 16 heures, while some of his other films will be screened as part of the Homage section.

The films are: Pourquoi Israël (Israel, Why), a restored and digitized version of Shoah, Tsahal, Un vivant qui passe (A Visitor from the Living) and Le rapport Karski (The Karski Repor).

“Claude Lanzmann is one of the great documentarists. With his depictions of inhumanity and violence, of anti-semitism and its consequences, he created a new kind of cinematic and ethical exploration. We feel honoured to honour him,” Dieter Kosslick, director of Berlinale said.

Lanzmann made his first documentary, Pourquoi Israël, in 1973 on the necessity of Israel’s founding from the Jewish perspective. His second film, Shaoh, is a nine and a half hour documentary on the genocide of European Jews by the Nazis. The film brought him international acclaim and was referred to as an “unparalleled masterpiece of commemorative culture”. The film was screened at the Berlinale Forum in 1986. Lanzmann’s next two films, Tsahal and Sobibor, 14 octobre 1943, 16 heures were screened at the Berlinale Forum 1995 and Berlinale Forum 2002, respectively.

The Berlin International Film Festival will run from 7th to 17th February, 2013.

Posted by NewsDesk on Nov 30 2012. Filed under Features & Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.