Steven Spielberg will be feted with a special homage at the 73rd edition of the Berlin International Film Festival next February.
The festival will present Spielberg with an Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement and also screen most of his recent work, including The Fabelmans.
“With an incredible career, Steven Spielberg has not only enchanted generations of viewers all over the world but has also given a new meaning to the ‘cinema’ as the factory of dreams,” Berlinale director duo Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian said in a joint statement.
“Be it in the everlasting magic world of teenagers or in the reality that history has carved forever, his movies take us to a different level, where the big screen becomes the adequate surface for our emotions to be fulfilled. If Berlinale 2023 represents a new beginning we couldn’t find a better start than the one offered by Spielberg’s great work.
Spielberg has 59 director credits and more than 180 producer credits to his name in an award-winning, hit-making career spanning 73 years.
He has been nominated for an Academy Award 19 times and has taken three statuettes home over years, comprising Best Director for Saving Private Ryan in 1999 and Best Director and Best Picture for Schindler’s List in 1994.
The director has also been feted worldwide by non-cinema bodies, receiving the Grand Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1998, in recognition of Schindler’s List and his Shoah Foundation.
In 2001, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). In 2015, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from sitting US President Barack Obama.
Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, an autobiographical work inspired by his childhood years, will be released by Universal Pictures Germany in German theatres in March 2023.
The Berlinale will run February 16-26 2023.
