Yana Ugrekhelidze © Daniel Seiffert / Berlinale 2021

The Compass-Perspektive-Award will be presented to the best film from the Perspektive Deutsches Kino programme of the Berlinale Summer Special tonight. The Berlinale congratulates Yana Ugrekhelidze on winning the Compass-Perspektive-Award for her film:

Instructions for Survival

(Germany)

by Yana Ugrekhelidze

Jury statement:

Instructions for Survival shakes the viewer’s foundations from the get-go. First depicting physical, then structural violence against LGBTQI people, it increases our awareness of the kind of degrading situation the protagonists find themselves in. Alexander and Mari live in Tiflis, Georgia, in secrecy and constant uncertainty: Since Alexander’s trans identity isn’t recognised by law, and he’s been rejected by his family, the couple has decided to emigrate. To raise the money they need, Mari agrees to a surrogate pregnancy. Yana Ugrekhelidze’s documentary film reveals its protagonists’ secret little by little. It approaches their situation without intruding, and shares their closeness during the most intimate moments, without exploiting them. This careful observation of the love between the protagonists who have to give up their homeland to live out their identities illustrates some of Europe’s dramatic deficiencies. We were touched by the story of their flight.

The jury also selected a fiction film for special mention:

Wood and Water

(Germany / France)

by Jonas Bak

Jury statement:

In Wood and Water, a retired woman from the Black Forest travels to Hong Kong in search of her lost son. Through magical images, a precisely observed meditation on aging is created, as well as an atmospheric and decelerating cinema experience.

Jurors Claudia Lehmann, Lili Hering and Simon Dat Vu will present the award, endowed with 5,000 Euros, at tonight’s closing of Perspektive Deutsches Kino. The director will receive a trophy in the form of a compass, intended to symbolically provide orientation. The award ceremony will take place this evening at 9.30 pm at the open-air cinema Freiluftkino Hasenheide.