As of 2020, the Berlinale Documentary Film Award will be sponsored to the tune of €40,000 by new backer, public broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb).
The broadcaster will also be involved with the festival as a co-partner in a partnership agreed for the five years, Berlinale announced November 13.
Approximately 18 new documentaries will be nominated for the Berlinale Documentary Film Award, culled from the Competition, Encounters, Panorama, Forum, Generation, Berlinale Special and Perspektive Deutsches Kino sections.
A three-person jury will choose the winner and the €40,000 will be shared by the director and the producer of the winning film. The award will be presented during the official Ceremony at the Berlinale Palast on February 29, 2020.
In 2019, approximately 100 documentary films and documentary forms were shown at the festival. The Berlinale Documentary Film Award was launched in 2017.
“We’re very pleased that we can maintain our dedication to documentary film at the Berlinale by presenting the Documentary Film Award together with our media partner rbb. The involvement of rbb subsidiary, rbb media, as an official co-partner of the festival and its valuable commitment to the Berlinale is the perfect complement,” commented Mariette Rissenbeek, Executive Director of the Berlinale.
“Our long-time relationship with the Berlinale is characterised by the broadcaster’s closeness to the themes of the festival. This is why we are especially pleased to support the Berlinale with rbb media as festival co-partner, and to actively encourage a very special kind of film with rbb as the Berlinale Documentary Award sponsor,” added Patricia Schlesinger, director of Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg.
.
