The 71st Berlinale to be held February 11-21, 2021 will also introduce new gender-neutral performance awards.

The leading A-festival and its industry event the European Film Market will take place ”in accordance with the then-applicable rules and regulations, thus ensuring the greatest possible security for all guests,” said today’s Berlinale press statement.

“Festivals and markets are places of encounter and communication. This applies to the public as well as to the industry,” said the Berlinale’s co-directors Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian. “We see an important and unique feature of festivals in their lively relationship with the audience. In times of the corona pandemic, it has become even clearer that we still require analogue experience spaces in the cultural realm. We are pleased that festivals with physically present audiences are slowly taking place again around the world, and we wish our colleagues much success.”

The Berlinale also announced three major changes to its 2021 edition: 
  • Gender-neutral performance awards or Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance and Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance will replace the existing Silver Bears for Best Actor and Best Actress. “We believe that not separating the awards in the acting field according to gender comprises a signal for a more gender-sensitive awareness in the film industry,” said the festival’s co-directors. 
  • Short films will be removed from the children and youth section Generation, that will accept only feature films with a running time of at least 60 minutes. 
  • A new Silver Bear Jury Prize will be introduced, while the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize will be removed. The award was suspended last year due to new findings about the Berlinale first director Alfred Bauer’s position under National Socialism. 

Further adjustments about the festival’s structure, programming and total number of invited films will be defined by the Berlinale management team in the coming weeks.

The official film selection registration opens September 1st, 2020 onwww.berlinale.de.