GWFF Best First Feature Award

Since 2006, when it introduced the GWFF Best First Feature Award, the Berlinale has been even more committed to supporting the next generation of filmmakers. The award is endowed with 50,000 euros, donated by the GWFF (Gesellschaft zur Wahrnehmung von Film- und Fernsehrechten), a society dedicated to safeguarding film and television rights. The prize money is to be split between the producer and the director of the winning film. Additionally, the director will be awarded with a high-quality viewfinder as both a useful instrument and memorable trophy.

In 2024, 16 directorial feature film debuts from the sections Competition, Encounters, Panorama, Forum and Generation were nominated.

GWFF Best First Feature Award 2024

Cu Li Không Bao Giờ Khóc (Cu Li Never Cries)
by Phạm Ngọc Lân
produced by: Nghiêm Quỳnh Trang, Trần Thị Bích Ngọc

Jury GWFF Best First Feature Award 2024

© Victoria Stevens

Eliza Hittman (USA)

Born in New York, director, screenwriter and producer Eliza Hittman studied art at the California Institute of the Arts. Her feature film debut It Felt Like Love, which she produced and for which she also wrote the screenplay, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. There, her second film, Beach Rats (2017), also premiered and won the Directing Award. Her third feature film Never Rarely Sometimes Always was presented in the Berlinale Competition in 2020 and was awarded the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2018 and served as jury president at the 2021 Locarno Film Festival. Hittman is currently an associate professor of film/video at the Pratt Institute.

© George Pimentel

Andréa Picard (Canada)

Andréa Picard is a Senior Film curator at the Toronto International Film Festival where she programmes retrospectives at TIFF Cinematheque and oversees the Wavelengths section dedicated to artist film and video. She is also an advisor to the Marrakech International Film Festival and was previously the artistic director of the 40th edition of the Cinéma du Réel festival at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She has curated exhibitions internationally and, as an author and critic, she has published in numerous artist monographs and repeatedly in Cinema Scope magazine, as well as in Artforum, Sight & Sound and Mousse.

Katrin Pors (Denmark)

Katrin Pors is a Danish producer known for bridging Latin America with Northern Europe. She is one of the founders of the production company Snowglobe and has worked as a producer, executive and co-producer on numerous projects with some of the most esteemed directors in contemporary art house cinema. Her most recent work as a producer includes The Untamed (2016) by Amat Escalante, the opening film of the 50th Directors’ Fortnight, Birds of Passage (2018) by Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego, Godland (2022) by Hlynur Palmason, as well as the co-productions Monos (Panorama 2019) by Alejandro Landes, The Worst Person in the World (2021) by Joachim Trier and A Chiara (2021) by Jonas Carpignano, which had their premieres at Cannes.

The following feature films were nominated for the GWFF Best First Feature Award:

Competition
Gloria! by Margherita Vicario
Mé el Aïn (Who Do I Belong To) by Meryam Joobeur

Encounters
Khamyazeye bozorg (The Great Yawn) by Aliyar Rasti
Kong fang jian li de nv ren (Some Rain Must Fall) by Qiu Yang

Panorama
Betânia by Marcelo Botta
Cu Li Không Bao Giờ Khóc (Cu Li Never Cries) by Phạm Ngọc Lân
Yo vi tres luces negras (I Saw Three Black Lights) by Santiago Lozano Álvarez

Forum
Chroniques fidèles survenues au siècle dernier à l’hôpital psychiatrique Blida-Joinville, au temps où le Docteur Frantz Fanon était chef de la cinquième division entre 1953 et 1956 (True Chronicles of the Blida Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in the Last Century, when Dr Frantz Fanon Was Head of the Fifth Ward Between 1953 and 1956) by Abdenour Zahzah
The Human Hibernation by Anna Cornudella Castro
La piel en primavera (Skin in Spring) by Yennifer Uribe Alzate
Shahid by Narges Kalhor

Generation
Ellbogen (Elbow) by Aslı Özarslan
Kai Shi De Qiang (She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones) by Qu Youjia
Last Swim by Sasha Nathwani
Xiao Ban Jie (The Great Phuket) by Liu Yaonan
Young Hearts (Junge Herzen) by Anthony Schatteman