Berlin (Efe) .
“I must have done something right in life if I am here, before you, receiving the award for my career as a whole from one of the best film festivals in the world,” Spielberg responded, before a packed press room, to the question of How did you feel at that precise moment?
The American director did more than fulfill his duty to be grateful. He agreed to answer “some more questions”, after the time scheduled for his press conference and when the moderator -Rainer Rother, responsible for the festival’s Retrospective- had closed the turn.
“Jaws” -“Jaws”, 1975- was the “physically most ambitious” film of his career, he explained, required to name the most outstanding titles in his filmography. “Schindler’s List” -“Schindler’s List”, 1993-, on the other hand, was the most “emotionally” demanding film, she added.
His latest film will be screened at the special gala where he will receive the award
“The Fabelmans” -2022-, his latest film, with seven Oscar nominations and which will be screened at the special gala where he will receive the Bear of Honor, has become a kind of “emotional experience”, he said, alluding to its autobiographical ingredients.
It is a film conceived under the restrictions imposed by the pandemic and “under the impact of fear of the covid,” he explained.
In that period he spent a lot of time at home with his wife and children. There he wondered if there was some kind of film “that he hadn’t done yet” and for which he “probably doesn’t have time to do it at another time.”
Thus, he began working on a script based on the story of his parents and his sister, a Jewish family, in the United States in the 50s and 60s.
Circumstances like this – “or like the fact of receiving an award for a career as a whole”, he said – make one “reflect” on one’s own existence and turn their gaze towards personal and family issues.
The Golden Bear of Honor from the Berlinale to Spielberg (1946, Ohio) is part of a filmography with more than 100 titles or series. He has won three Oscars – among a total of 19 nominations for the Hollywood Academy Awards – and is one of the most versatile or complete filmmakers in the history of cinema.
A retrospective of Spielberg’s career at the Berlinale
The retrospective scheduled at the 73rd edition of the Berlinale includes, along with the aforementioned “Jaws”, “Schindler’s List” and “The Fabelmanns”, titles such as “Bridge of Spies” -“El puente de los espias”, 2015- Partially shot on original locations in Berlin for Cold War prisoner exchanges.
“ET, the extraterrestrial” (1982) and “Munich” (2005) were also screened, centered on the hostage-taking of the Israeli team by the Palestinian Black September commando, during the 1972 Olympics. The kidnapping ended in a bloodbath , with nine hostages and a dead policeman, in addition to five of the eight terrorists, in the midst of a disastrous police operation that continues to embarrass Germany.
Spielberg declined to comment on what are the major milestones in his career – “do not expect prodigies: I will tell you that each of my films is like a son and I can not choose,” he said.
On the other hand, he declared that probably the most important thing he has accomplished is the creation of the Shoa Foundation, which emerged as a result of “Schindler’s List” and was destined to remember the millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust.
“A film, like Schindler’s, occupies a relatively short attention span. The Shoa Foundation is a long-term project”, he affirmed.
The institution awarded him a distinction not directly related to any of his films: the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the country’s highest institutional distinction, which he received in 1998.
