Berlinale 2023: Honorary Golden Bear and homage 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. 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,” says 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 theatres in March 2023.

The Homage films and the date of the Award Ceremony will be published at a later date.