Women Filmmakers Win Berlinale Golden Bear and Silver Bear
Feb 16, 2009 | 1 Comment | ByBirds Eye View
BEV programmer Daniela gives us a second update from Berlin, and is thrilled to hear that her favourite film won the Golden Bear…
The Milk of Sorrow dir. Claudia Llosa (Spain/Peru)
From the very opening scene I knew I was seeing a very special film (and that I made the right choice to make it to the 9.30 am screening after having gone to sleep at 4 am…) – a beautiful, haunting lament, a single voice, gorgeous, soft, heart-breaking- its owner soon revealed- an old woman, lying in bed with her eyes closed, her wrinkled face framed by beautiful long ashen hair spread over the pillow… She sings about how she was raped by rebels years ago, her husband killed in front of her, her unborn daughter witnessing this brutal act from inside her mother’s womb. The daughter’s face leaning gently over the old woman’s, their destinies bound by a bond much deeper than most mothers and daughters – a mysterious illness was passed on through her breast milk, and is said to affect children of thousands of victims in Peru’s bloody civil war – the sickness of fear.
