Awards of the Independent Juries for Forum 2025

The independent juries of the Berlinale consist of critics', readers' and industry juries, which award films from the entire Berlinale program. We are presenting here those who have honored Forum films with prizes this year. The complete list of independent juries can be found on the Berlinale website. The Caligari prize for FWENDS is covered in a seperate news.

FIPRESCI Prize Berlinale 2025

FIPRESCI (Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique) is the international association of film critics who award prizes at all major film festivals. The jury for the Berlinale Forum 2025 consisted of Timmy Chih-Ting Chen, Sofia Alvarez Salas and David Katz. FIPRESCI awards prizes for each section of the Berlinale.

The winner from the Forum program was LA MEMORIA DE LAS MARIPOSAS by Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski. In this cinematic journey into the past, Sadowski follows the trail of an old photograph of two indigenous young men and deconstructs the history of the colonial rubber trade in Latin America in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The FIPRESCI jury gave out the following statement: “From the transportive spell of its mysterious soundscape, and with its innovative use of photochemical textures and evocatively deployed archival materials to enhance our gaze and state of unknowing, which the director mimics in her own respectful distance, and for opening us to the lives of Omarino and Aredomi, two indigenous men trafficked to London for public display, we award our jury prize for the Forum section to Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski’s LA MEMORIA DE LAS MARIPOSAS.“

THE MEMORY OF THE BUTTERFLIES also received an honorable mention from the Berlinale Documentary Film Award.

Ecumenical Jury 2025

The prize of the Ecumenical Jury for a Forum film goes to the US-American filmmaker Brandon Kramer and his film HOLDING LIAT, in which he filmed the family of Liat, who was forcibly abducted from her kibbutz by members of Hamas on October 7, 2023.

The jury statement: “Holding Liat deals with the fate of one of an Israeli woman, who has been abducted by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Without knowing the outcome of the hostage crisis the filmmakers started a respectful and focused chronicle of a family in anguish. This documentary shows exactly what our time so desperately needs: the willingness to have differentiated conversations and to endure complexities and controversies, without breaking off the discussion.”

HOLDING LIAT also received the Berlinale Documentary Award 2025.

The Ecumenical Jury honors films that address important social and interreligious issues. There are Ecumenical Juries at over 30 festivals; they are composed of equal numbers of members from each confession. The jury members in 2025 were Juan Carlos Carrillo Cal y Mayor, Peter Ciaccio, Valérie de Marnhac, Christian Olding, Dr. Brigitta Rotach and Dr. Stefanie Schardien.

CICAE Art Cinema Award

This year, the CICAE Art Cinema Award goes to filmmaker Marie Luise Lehner and her film WENN DU ANGST HAST NIMMST DU DEIN HERZ IN DEN MUND UND LÄCHELST (When You're Afraid, You Take Your Heart in Your Mouth and Smile). In it, she tells the story of 12-year-old Anna and her deaf mother, who are trying to find their way in Vienna between assimilation and solidarity.

The jury statement: “The three of us feel we were given a warm embrace by a very open, frivolous and nonjudgemental film that does not put it's characters into boxes, but rather lets them openly express themselves. Wenn du Angst hast nimmst du dein Herz in den Mund und lächelst just might be a new catch phrase for the three of us. It is a rich, complex and rewarding film from a new voice. Marie Luise Lehner has made a remarkable artistic achievement, tackling a lot of timely social issues with a diverse cast of characters, allowing and empowering us to be ourselves. But above all, we had a wonderful time with this film, and we sincerely hope it will reach the broadest of audiences.”

The CICAE Art Cinema Award is presented by the International Confederation of Arthouse Cinemas (Confédération Internationale des Cinémas d'Art et d'Essai). It is awarded by an international jury of cinema operators and programmers and aims to bring high-quality films to arthouse cinemas. The jury this year consisted of Juliette Duret, Marlene Hofmann and Jure Matičič.

Teddy Awards

WENN DU ANGST HAST NIMMST DU DEIN HERZ IN DEN MUND UND LÄCHELST also received the Teddy Jury Award.

The jury statement says: “A twelve-year-old person navigates a precisely drawn sociogeographical landscape, crossing boundaries of both school and milieu. The experience of being marked as special emerges as deeply ambivalent, yet the exploration of identity resists both simple resolution and catastrophe. This film cuts to the heart of our present moment with deceptive ease, populating its world with queer lives while insisting on the fundamental queerness of existence – and finally, asserting that bodily autonomy must never be surrendered to institutional control. The TEDDY Jury Prize goes to IF YOU ARE AFRAID YOU PUT YOUR HEART INTO YOUR MOUTH AND SMILE by Marie Luise Lehner.”

The TEDDY AWARD, the most important queer film award in the world, is a socially committed political prize that honors films and people who communicate queer topics on a broad social level, thereby contributing to tolerance, acceptance, solidarity and equality in society. The jury members 2025 were Raul Niño Zambrano, Allegra Madsen and Jan Künemund.

Heiner Carow Prize

The film PALLIATIVSTATION (Palliative Care Unit) by Philipp Döring received the Heiner Carow Prize 2025. The film is a four-hour observation of a palliative care unit at the Franziskus Hospital in Berlin. Döring documents several months between spring and summer, accompanying doctors on their rounds and observing conversations with relatives, and listening in on the team's internal exchanges.

The jury statement reads: “Confronted with death, this film focuses on what it means to be human. It provides a clear-eyed and empathetic view of the day-to-day life in a clinic for the terminally ill. Together with the staff and the dying, the audience is confronted with existential questions and reminded of what is essential in life: listening, comforting, and being there for one another – in the face of this film, it is inconceivable that we live in such hateful times. PALLIATIVSTATION is deeply humanistic and shows the indispensable importance of empathy, which we all actually have within us. The most precious thing is time. This film shows how valuable it is. It is a quiet but deeply moving tribute to life, which also includes dying.”

The Heiner Carow Prize is a German newcomer award and is given across sections to the director of a first or second German feature-length film. The DEFA Foundation donates the 5,000 Euro prize. The jury members in 2025 were Jide Tom Akinleminu (cinematographer and director), Barbara Bartlet (DEFA Foundation) and Annika Pinske (director).

Tagesspiegel Readers' Jury

In 2025, the Tagesspiegel Readers' Jury honors the film THE SWAN SONG OF FEDOR OZEROV by Yuri Semashko. In it, a young musician searches for his lucky sweater, without which he cannot write songs. This odyssey-cum-detective story leads him through the flats of friends, women and strangers and into conversations with comical characters whose angst is only exceeded by their egos.

The jury statement: “The story of a young musician who absolutely wants to write a good song before the impending end of the world, the film empathetically shows a (im)possible way of dealing with today’s lack of future prospects. We were won over by its original structure and humorous dialogue. The exhilarating first feature of a Belarusian director and an ensemble of immigrants living in Polish exile.”

The Tagesspiegel Readers' Jury 2025 consisted of Maximilian Simbolon, Manuela Ziegler, Theresa Wiesweg, Katja Horstmann, Amari Barash, Julian Gabrysch and Akito Ruhl.

The winner Yuri Semashko had already left Berlin on Saturday, so the prize was accepted by the Berlin co-producers Marc-Daniel Dichant and Christian Riegel.