Chinese film “Black Coal, Thin Ice,” directed by Diao Yinan, won the Golden Bear for best film at the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival.
Liao Fan, who starred as an alcoholic detective working in the Chinese provinces, took the Silver Bear honor for Best Actor. Another Silver Bear was awarded to Chinese film: Lou Ye’s drama “Blind Massage.”
Wes Anderson‘s “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” with its star-studded cast, won the Grand Jury Prize, the festival’s runner-up award. Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” won the Best Director Silver Bear. “Boyhood,” which stars Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, was shot over the course of 12 years. It follows a young man, Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from age 5 to age 18.
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The best actress Silver Bear for best actress went to Japanese actress Haru Kuroki in “The Little House.” Brother and sister Anna and Dietrich Bruggemann took home the best screenplay Silver Bear honors for “Stations of the Cross.”
French filmmaker Alain Resnais earned the Alfred Bauer Prize — named after the Berlinale’s first festival director — for “Life of Riley.”
“Black Coal, Thin Ice” is the first Chinese film to win the top award at the Berlin film fest since 2007’s “Tuya’s Wedding,” by Wang Quan’an.