The Berlin International Film Festival is to bestow an audience award on one of its competition titles for the first time at its upcoming Summer Special (June 9-20).
To mark the public summer event, which follows the online, industry-only edition of the festival in March, organisers have introduced the one-off award that will give audiences the opportunity to vote on the 15 films that played in competition.
The international jury of the festival’s 71st edition awarded the Golden Bear for best film to Radu Jude’s Romanian satire Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn in March.
But audiences will now choose their own winner from the titles, when the festival screens its programme outdoors at 16 venues across Berlin.
It joins the Berlinale’s traditional Panorama audience award, which has been presented annually since 1999. Both awards will be presented on June 20, the last night of the festival, followed by screenings of the two winners.
Further awards set to be revealed during the Summer Special include the Berlinale Documentary Award, which includes a prize of €40,000, and the best first feature, which comes with €50,000. Both will be split between the producer and director of the winning films.
A total of 16 documentaries are nominated from across the festival’s various strands while 13 directorial feature film debuts are up for consideration by a jury.
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