A Palestinian award-winner's accusation that Germany has supported genocide sparked political after the closing gala, while others criticized the festival's attempts to remain neutral on Gaza.
This year's Berlin International Film Festival prize winners, and their acceptance speeches, make clear the difficult tightrope along which the festival has to walk.
Closing a 10-day festival that had been marked by a social media storm surrounding jury president Wim Wenders' comment that filmmakers should "stay out of politics," the films that were selected to win the top awards, Ilker Catak's "Yellow Letters" and Emin Alper's "Salvation," demonstrated that the Berlinale remains the most political of Europe's three big film festivals, next to Cannes and Venice.
Despite an open letter's accusations of "censorship" of the artists speaking out on Gaza, various award winners also used their acceptance speeches to make political statements on the issue.
Palestinian prize-winner's comment leads to political backlash
One award winner in particular directly criticized the German government for remaining a staunch ally of Israel.
Syrian-Palestinian director Abdallah Alkhatib, who picked up a prize for Best First Feature Awa
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