Berlinale Summer Special highlights

The Berlinale Summer Special ended on June 20 with the Competition Audience Award, and cinema-goers picked "Mr Bachmann and His Class" as their favorite competition film. The nearly four-hour long documentary, which had also won the Silver Bear Jury Prize, follows a teacher and his class of multicultural children. Herr Bachmann himself played the guitar at the premiere of the film.

Actor Daniel Brühl (right) stars in his own directorial debut, "Next Door," alongside Peter Kurth (left), known internationally as Inspector Wolter in the series "Babylon Berlin." In the film, Brühl portrays a famous actor who embodies gentrification in Berlin. It premiered on June 16.

The Golden and Silver Bear prizewinners were able to travel to Berlin to pick up their statues on June 13, but the ceremony took place outside, with different COVID-related security measures still in place. Here the winners pose with their trophies all while keeping a respectable distance from each other.

Maren Eggert smiles as she holds the Silver Bear recognizing her performance in the German film "I'm Your Man." The Berlin International Film Festival has eliminated its best actor and best actress categories, giving out instead for the first time two other acting awards on a gender-neutral basis, one for the best lead performance and another one for best supporting role.

Due to the pandemic, the Berlinale was split into two separate events. The first part, an online version of the festival, was held in March and restricted to film industry professionals as a replacement for the European Film Market. Now, during the Summer Special from June 9-20, many films are celebrating their actual premiere with an outdoor screening.

Aliaksei Paluyan's "Courage," a documentary on the Belarus protests, celebrated its Berlin premiere on June 11. Nobel Prize for Literature winner Svetlana Alexievich and lead opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya were special guests at the event. The audience was also invited to hold photos of arrested Belarusian opposition members as a sign of solidarity.

Dominik Graf's film "Fabian – Going to the Dogs," based on Erich Kästner's classic novel, is set in Weimar-era Berlin, amid an exhilarating nightlife and the looming Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933. While lead actors Saskia Rosendahl and Tom Schilling portray intimate scenes in the film, they played along with the very different rules of conduct of this pandemic year at the premiere on June 10.

The first Berlin International Film Festival under Carlo Chatrian's and Mariette Rissenbeek's leadership was in 2020. With the pandemic breaking out right after the event, all established Berlinale traditions had to be revised for 2021. After months of uncertainty, the Summer Special opened on Berlin's Museum Island on June 9. "It is a pleasure," said artistic director Chatrian on the red carpet.

Also joining the opening night celebration, Commissioner for Culture and the Media Monika Grütters said she hoped the Berlinale's Summer Special would feel like a "real campfire romance." Cinemas in Germany have been closed since November 2; outdoor screenings have only recently been allowed again. "We'll perhaps enjoy this [festival] like rarely before," said Grütters.

The opening film was "The Mauritanian," directed by Kevin Macdonald. Based on the true story of a man who was detained without charge for 14 years in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, the film stars Jodie Foster in the role of internationally recognized criminal defense lawyer Nancy Hollander, who personally introduced the film at the opening event.

Different cinema greats from Germany also joined the festival's opening — among them director Volker Schlöndorff ("The Tin Drum"). But Hollywood actors, who usually show up on the red carpet, had to stay away this year.

For many years, the Berlin film festival was actually held in the summer. "This of course reminds me of many years back," German actor Iris Berben, born in 1950, told dpa. In the 1970s, Berlinale organizers decided to hold the festival earlier in the year to give it an edge on Cannes. "I remember there was a lot of grumbling when they moved it to the cold season," added Berben at the opening.

The Berlinale's central location is a specially created open-air cinema on Berlin's Museum Island, but the screenings of the festival's selection are held at 16 sites spread out throughout the city, such as this one in the courtyard of the Charlottenburg Palace. Along with the beach chairs, the warm weather contributed to the special atmosphere on the first night of the festival.