Steven Spielberg will be honored by the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival with an homage and the fest’s honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement.
Jaws, Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., and lately, West Side Story; the list of Spielberg’s successes is endless. Over the course of a long and glorious career, Spielberg has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of 19 times, and won three Oscars — two best picture statuettes for “The Color Purple” and “Schindler’s List” and a best director gong for “Saving Private Ryan.”
Spielberg’s latest film, “The Fablemans,” his semi-autobiographical look at growing up as a film-obsessed teenager in Arizona and Northern California, will also screen at the festival which runs Feb. 16-26, 2023. Universal Pictures Germany will release the film in German theaters in March.
“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,” said Berlinale director duo Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, in a statement.
“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,” they added.
“He is considered the most successful filmmaker of all time” said the Berlinale in a statement, which also noted that Spielberg has won numerous Golden Globes and Emmys for his filmmaking, as well as a host of honors for his commitment to social causes.
The Berlinale underlined that Spielberg in 1998 was awarded the Grand Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of “Schindler’s List” and his Shoah Foundation. In 2001, Queen Elizabeth II appointed the director and producer Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). In 2015, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then U.S. President Barack Obama.
The selection of Spielberg films that will screen at the Berlinale as part of the homage and also the date of the ceremony during which he will receive the award will be announced at a later date.
