Festival

Steven Spielberg

16.–26.2.23

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Honorary Golden Bear for Steven Spielberg

The Homage of the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival will be devoted to US-American director, producer and screenwriter Steven Spielberg, who will also be presented with an Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement. In the scope of the Award Ceremony at the Berlinale Palast, the festival will screen his most recent work, ‘The Fabelmans’ on February 21, 2023.

A recipient of multiple Academy Awards, Spielberg is one of the world’s most renowned filmmakers. His oeuvre, consisting of over 100 films and series, is unique in the history of international cinema of the past 60 years for its immense variety.

Spielberg has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of 19 times throughout his career – to date he has taken home an Oscar statuette on three occasions. He is considered the most successful filmmaker of all time. His career has been studded with awards, including numerous Golden Globes and Emmys for his filmmaking, as well as a host of honours for his commitment to social causes. For instance, in 1998 he was awarded the Grand Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of his film ‘Schindler’s List’ and his Shoah Foundation. In 2001, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). In 2015, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from sitting US President Barack Obama.

“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 the “cinema” as the factory of dreams. 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,” say the Berlinale director duo Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian.

In ‘The Fabelmans’, an autobiographical work, the director takes a very personal look back at his childhood years. Universal Pictures Germany will release the film in German theaters in March 2023.

The films of the Homage

  • Bridge of Spies

    USA/GER, 2015, directed by Steven Spielberg

    with Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Scott Shepherd, Amy Ryan and Sebastian Koch

    A New York lawyer unsuccessfully defends a Russian spy in court. He then organises a prisoner exchange for him in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War. Based on historical events, Spielberg’s thriller sports the style of contemporary spy movies.

  • Duel

    USA, 1972, directed by Steven Spielberg

    with Dennis Weaver, Jacqueline Scott, Eddie Firestone, Lou Frizell and Gene Dynarski

    Driving through the California desert, a businessman finds himself besieged and threatened by a tanker truck. To survive, he must draw on unknown reserves of courage. This breakneck gem of visual storytelling was Spielberg’s first theatrical release.

  • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

    USA, 1982, directed by Steven Spielberg

    with Dee Wallace, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore and Henry Thomas

    A lonely young boy gets a new best friend when he finds a small alien in the trash. This moving story of home and separation not only won over the hearts of millions of children, but became a box office smash with vast merchandising potential.

  • The Fabelmans

    USA, 2022, directed by Steven Spielberg

    with Gabriel LaBelle, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen and Chloe East

    The story of the colourful Fabelman family, and son Sammy’s passion for amateur movie-making. The film is Steven Spielberg’s homage to his own journey to a successful directing career, making it his most personal film to date.

  • Jaws

    USA, 1975, directed by Steven Spielberg 

    with Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary and Murray Hamilton

    After a great white shark kills several swimmers in a small resort town, three very different men set out to sea together to hunt the predator. Steven Spielberg’s thriller pioneered the blockbuster movie trend, using Hitchcockian cinematic devices.

  • Munich

    USA/CA/France, 2005, directed by Steven Spielberg

    with Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciarán Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler

    After the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the Israeli secret service tasks a group of men with killing those deemed responsible. A high-octane thriller with international locations and actors, which explores the legitimacy of violent retaliation.

  • Raiders of the Lost Ark

    USA, 1981, directed by Steven Spielberg

    with Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey and John Rhys-Davies

    In this opener in what would become a five-part franchise, Harrison Ford’s archaeologist Indiana Jones skirmishes with Nazi henchmen on three continents. A fast-paced adventure film filled with tongue-in-cheek references to classic Hollywood movies.

  • Schindler’s List

    USA, 1993, directed by Steven Spielberg

    with Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall and Jonathan Sagalle

    One of Steven Spielberg’s most notable works. The multi-award-winning film tells the story of a manufacturer in Nazi-occupied Poland who managed to save more than 1000 of his Jewish employees from deportation to the concentration camp Auschwitz.