The 73rd Berlin International Film Festival will pay tribute to Steven Spielberg and award him the festival’s honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement.
Spielberg’s latest film, The Fablemans, his semi-autobiographical look at growing up as a film-obsessed teenager in Arizona and Northern California, will also screen at the festival which runs February 16-26, 2023. Universal Pictures Germany will release the film in German theaters in March.
“With an incredible career, Steven Spielberg has not only enchanted generations of viewers all over the world, but has also given a new meaning to ‘cinema’ as the factory of dreams,” said Berlinale director duo Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, in a statement.
“Be it in the everlasting magic world of teenagers or in the reality that history has carved forever, his movies take us to a different level, where the big screen becomes the adequate surface for our emotions to be fulfilled. If Berlinale 2023 represents a new beginning we couldn’t find a better start than the one offered by Spielberg’s great work,” they added.
The Berlinale underlined that Spielberg in 1998 was awarded the Grand Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of Schindler’s List and his Shoah Foundation. In 2001, Queen Elizabeth II appointed the director and producer Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). In 2015, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then U.S. President Barack Obama.
The selection of Spielberg films that will screen at the Berlinale as part of the homage and also the date of the ceremony during which he will receive the award will be announced at a later date.
