The 75th Berlin International Film Festival will present its Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement to Tilda Swinton. The award will be handed out during the festival’s opening night ceremony on Feb. 13 at the Berlinale Palast.
Swinton, who first attended the Berlinale in 1986 with Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio, has maintained a decades-long relationship with the festival. She served as president of the International Jury in 2009 and has appeared in 26 films featured across various Berlinale programs, including “The Beach,” “Julia,” “The Garden,” and “Last and First Men.”
Festival director Tricia Tuttle cited Swinton’s wide-ranging career and enduring commitment to cinema as reasons for the honor. “The range of Tilda Swinton’s work is breathtaking,” Tuttle said in a statement. “She brings so much humanity, compassion, intelligence, humor and style, and she expands our ideas of the world through her work.”
Swinton responded with a nod to her long history with the event: “The Berlinale is the first film festival I ever went to, in 1986 with Derek Jarman and the first film I made, his ‘Caravaggio’,” she said. “It was my portal into the world in which I have made my life’s work.” She continued, “To be honoured in this way by this particular festival is deeply touching for me.”
Swinton won the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress in 2007 for Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton,” and has worked with filmmakers including Jim Jarmusch, Béla Tarr, Bong Joon Ho, Joanna Hogg, and Luca Guadagnino. In 2020, she received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Film Festival.
The 2025 Berlinale will open with the world premiere of Tom Tykwer’s “Das Licht” (“The Light”) and run through Feb. 23. Ask ChatGPT