BERLIN — “Touch Me Not” by Romanian director Adina Pintilie won the Golden Bear for best feature film, the top prize at the 68th annual Berlin Film Festival.
The announcement Saturday came as a surprise: Pintilie’s formally experimental feature was one of the festival’s more divisive entries, partly because of the frankness of some of its sex scenes, and it was not considered a front-runner.
It tells the story of three people — including a fiftysomething woman who recoils at being touched and a man crippled by spinal muscular atrophy — struggling with issues of intimacy. It also won the award for best first feature film.
This was a particularly strong year for German films at the festival, with several homegrown entries, including Christian Petzold’s “Transit,” considered favorites for the major awards. Ultimately, however, they went home empty-handed.
The Silver Bear, or the runner-up prize, went to “Mug,” by Małgorzata Szumowska of Poland. The film, a fable set in rural Poland, focuses on a young man who is seriously injured after an accident on the construction site of the world’s largest Jesus statue. In a nod to the discussions about gender equality that has dominated much of the festival, Szumowska noted in her acceptance speech, “I am so happy I am a female director.”
The award for best actor went to the 23-year-old Frenchman Anthony Bajon, for his live wire performance in “The Prayer” as a recovering drug addict at a Catholic sanctuary in southern France. Ana Brun took home the best actress prize for her role as a middle-aged woman forced to reshape her life after her long-term girlfriend is imprisoned for fraud in “The Heiresses.” The understated film, set in Paraguay, also took home the Alfred Bauer Prize for a feature “that opens new perspectives.”
Wes Anderson won the best director award for “Isle of Dogs,” the festival’s most star-studded competition entry, while the best screenplay award went to Manuel Alcalá and Alonso Ruizpalacios for “Museum,” a Mexican heist film starring Gael García Bernal. The Teddy Award for best gay-themed film was awarded to “Hard Paint,” a Brazilian film about a young man working as a chat-room performer.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.