French-Senegalese director makes history at Berlinale; top awards for Sebastian Stan, Emily Watson

Berlin, Feb 25 : French-Senegalese actor-turned-director Mati Diop made history twice over at the Berlin Film Festival awards ceremony on Saturday night.

She became the first Black director ever to win the Golden Bear, the festivals top prize, and her documentary Dahomey is the second non-fiction feature to win the honour after the French filmmaker Nicolas Philiberts triumph last year with his film On the Adamant, reports Variety.

Dahomey, a 67-minute documentary, is centred around Frances 2021 return of 26 ancient artefacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey to Benin, an attempted correction of 19th-century colonialist injustice, Variety notes.

It also adds that the films 67-minute running time makes it the shortest film to take the Bear since James Algars doc short In Beaver Valley way back in 1951, the festivals first year.

Erstwhile Marvel star Sebastian Stan got the Best Leading Performance award for his role in US director Aaron Schimbergs provocative black comedy A Different Man, playing a man with neurofibromatosis whose life falls apart following a miracle cure, adds Variety.

Two-time Oscar nominee Emily Watson won the award for a supporting role for her chilling performance in the festival opener Small Things Like These, playing a mother superior concealing Magdalene laundry abuses in 1980s Ireland.

Accepting her award, according to Variety, the British actor thanked co-star Cillian Murphy -- the films lead and producer, although hes now better known for Oppenheimer -- for including her in his passion project.

No Other Land, though, turned out to be the nights most popular and topical winner, says Variety.

The documentary is a devastating on-the-ground study of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation, directed by a four-person Palestinian-Israeli collective.

Juror Thomas Heise described the film as "[showing] us how the inhuman, ignorant politics of the Israeli government consciously wreaks havoc".

He continued: "Bearing witness and doing this responsibly and precisely -- that is the true basis of any documentary film."

Accepting the award, the films Palestinian subject and co-director Basel Adra said: "Its hard for me to celebrate when tens of thousands of my people are being slaughtered in Gaza." He went on to urge other nations to "respect the UN calls and stop sending weapons to Israel".

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