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The event’s other honorees include the actress Rose Byrne, a performance as the composer Richard Rodgers and an Argentine film about a girl who seems to speak to animals.
Feb. 22, 2025, 4:49 p.m. ET
The Norwegian drama “Dreams (Sex Love),” a tender, often funny film by the director Dag Johan Haugerud, won the top prize at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.
Part of a trilogy about contemporary relationships in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, the understated feature follows the consequences of a high school student’s obsession with her teacher and her decision to write about their relationship. The other two installments, “Sex” and “Love,” premiered last year at the Berlin and Venice film festivals.
In his acceptance speech, Haugerud said the film was about the act of “writing and reading.” He added that people should “write more and read more, it expands your mind.” He also praised the film’s young star, Ella Overbye, whose warm, finely calibrated performance carries much of the film.
The American director Todd Haynes led this year’s jury, which included the Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, the German filmmaker and actress Maria Schrader, and the Los Angeles Times film critic Amy Nicholson.
The runner-up prize went to “The Blue Trail,” a Brazilian film set in a society in which people above the age of 77 are sent to a “colony.” It was one of the most praised titles in competition at the Berlinale, as the festival is known in Germany.
“The Message,” a film from Argentina about a girl who claims to communicate with animals, won the special jury prize. In his speech, the director Iván Fund said the award represented a “counterweight” to the government’s drastic cuts to the cultural sector under President Javier Milei. “Cinema is under attack,” Fund said, but “film cannot be undone.”
