The American filmmaker Steven Spielberg, honorary Golden Bear at the Berlinale 2023 for his career, said Tuesday in Berlin that among his varied filmography he does not have any favorite film. “I know this will sound like a cliché, and it certainly isn’t news of great interest, but my films are like my children; I don’t have a favourite,” said the 76-year-old director, producer and screenwriter at a crowded press conference at the Berlinale, the veteran Berlin film festival, near the central Potsdamer Platz.
“The most difficult film I’ve made, physically, is Jaws, and the most difficult emotionally so far was Schindler’s List,” the director continued. (Jaws was released in 1975 and Schindler’s List, in 1993.) Now that milestone of emotional difficulty is held, according to what he said, Los Fabelmans, his autobiographical film – released in the United States in November 2022 and in Spain this month February -, nominated for seven Oscars this year, and which is screened tonight at the Berlinale Palast during the award ceremony for the honorary Golden Bear.
“The Fabelmans has been very difficult for me, because I was telling a story with a lot of funny parts, but with a lot of traumatic parts, and even recreating those scenes was very difficult; That is why it has become the job in which I am perhaps the most emotionally involved”, argued the filmmaker. In Los Fabelmans, a film conceived under the restrictions dictated by the pandemic and “under the impact of fear of the covid”, the director takes a very personal look at his childhood years.
Winner of multiple awards, Steven Spielberg is the author of a vast production made up of more than one hundred films and series, a production as a director, screenwriter or producer that, due to its immense variety, is unique in the history of international cinema of the last sixty years. . “I must have done something right in life if I am here, before you, receiving the award for the whole of my career from one of the best film festivals in the world,” Spielberg responded to a press room packed with journalists, to the question how he felt at that precise moment.
The American director went beyond his duty to show his appreciation, was very affable and helpful, and agreed to answer “a few more questions” when it was time to finish because the allotted time had elapsed.
For all this, Spielberg receives this honorary Golden Bear at the 73rd edition of the Berlinale, which this week dedicates its Tribute section to him with several of his films on the bill. “With an incredible career, Steven Spielberg has not only enchanted generations of viewers around the world, but has also given film a new meaning as a dream factory. Whether it is in the eternal magical world of adolescents or in the reality that history has carved forever, his films take us to a different level, where the big screen becomes the appropriate surface for our emotions to come true”, he argues. the duo that directs the Berlinale, Carlo Chatrian (artistic director) and Mariette Rissenbeek (executive director), in the justification of the honorary award.
The Tribute retrospective includes, apart from Jaws, Schindler’s List and The Fabelmans, films such as Bridge of Spies (2015), shot in Berlin; E.T., the extra-terrestrial (1982) and Munich (2005), centered on the hostage-taking of the Israeli team by the Palestinian command Black September, during the 1972 Olympic Games.
Steven Allan Spielberg (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1946), is one of the most versatile and successful filmmakers in the history of cinema. He has been nominated for Hollywood Academy Awards 19 times throughout his long career, and has won home so far three Oscar statuettes. He has won numerous Golden Globes and Emmy Awards for his filmmaking, and numerous honors for his commitment to social causes.