Berlinale 2025: Honorary Golden Bear to Tilda Swinton

Seven weeks and trifles before its opening, next Thursday, February 13, the 75th edition of the Berlin Festival is starting to take shape. First with the announcement in mid-November of the president of the jury, American director Todd Haynes (May December). Then at the beginning of this month, that of the opening film, The Light by Tom Tykwer, a director who had already twice had the privilege of opening the Berlinale, with Heaven in 2002 and The International Investigation in 2009. And finally, last week, on Friday December 20, it was the turn of the winner of the honorary Golden Bear to be revealed. This is the Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, who, since the very beginning of her career, in the mid-1980s, has maintained a close link with the festival.

This anniversary edition of one of the most prestigious European film festivals will take place until Sunday February 23, 2025 in the German capital. It will be the first under the direction of Tricia Tuttle, who took over from the duo Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek, in place since 2019. While the films in competition will not be announced until next year, no later than Tuesday 4 February, the day the screening times went online, certain titles from the parallel sections have already been revealed, including the new films by Denis Côté (Paul) and Ira Sachs (Peter Hujar’s Day).

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the career of Tilda Swinton (* 1960) took off at the Berlin Film Festival. At the time in the west part of the city, the actress came to accompany her first appointed director Derek Jarman during the presentation of their film CaravaggioSilver Bear in 1986. Since then, she has appeared in no less than twenty-six films presented in the official selection at the Berlinale, up to the most recent, the Icelandic experimental film Last and First Men by Johann Johannsson, at the Berlinale Special in 2020. In 2009, she was president of the jury, which then awarded its Golden Bear to Faust by Claudia Llosa.

Both an icon and a star of international cinema, Tilda Swinton has worked with the biggest names in the Seventh Art over the course of her career spanning almost forty years. After her highly successful collaboration with Derek Jarman until his death in 1994, she teamed up until the end of the century with, among others, Sally Potter (Orlando), John Maybury (Love is the Devil), Tim Roth (The War Zone) and Danny Boyle (The Beach).

From the 2000s, she opened up more to commercial cinema, teaming up with Scott McGehee and David Siegel (Deep blue), Cameron Crowe (Vanilla Sky), Spike Jonze (Adaptation), David MacKenzie (Young Adam), Norman Jewison (Crime against humanity), Francis Lawrence (Constantine), Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers et The Limits of Control), Andrew Adamson (The Chronicles of Narnia Chapter 1), Mike Mills (Dark difficult age), Erick Zonca (Julia), Bela Tarr (The Man from London), Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton), the Coen brothers (Burn After Reading), David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Luca Guadagnino (Amore).

More recently, she had crossed or recrossed paths with such renowned filmmakers as Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin), Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs – opening film of the 68th Berlinale, The French Dispatch et Asteroid City), Terry Gilliam (Zero Theorem), Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer Le Transperceneige et Okay), Jim Jarmusch (Only Lovers Left Alive et The Dead Don’t Die), Judd Apatow (Crazy Amy), the Coen brothers (Hail Caesar! – film d'overture of the 66ème Berlinale), Luca Guadagnino (A Bigger Splash et Sighs), Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange), Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir et Eternal Daughter), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Memory), George Miller (Three thousand years waiting for you) and David Fincher (The Killer).

His latest film, The Room Next Door by Pedro Almodóvar – Golden Lion at the last Venice Film Festival –, will be released on French cinema screens from January 8, 2025.

Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress for Michael Clayton in 2008, Tilda Swinton was nominated for a César for Best Actress the following year for Julia. She has been nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Awards five times, most recently in 2015 as a member of the ensemble The Grand Budapest Hotel. At the Venice Film Festival, she had already won an honorary Golden Lion in 2020.

Tilda Swinton is the fourth actress to accumulate the honors of president of the jury and Honorary Golden Bear in Berlin, after her sisters Jeanne Moreau, Meryl Streep and Charlotte Rampling. German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus was similarly distinguished. As a double lifetime achievement honoree in both Berlin and Venice, she joins as the tenth member of the exclusive club to which Sophia Loren, Robert De Niro, Jeanne Moreau, Claudia Cardinale, Francesco Rosi, Ken Loach, Catherine Deneuve, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese.