Mariam Shatberashvili, Süheyla Schwenk and Toby Ashraf form the jury for the BASIS Berlin Postproduction Award. For the third time, the Berlin World Cinema Festival AROUND THE WORLD IN 14 FILMS is presenting the “BASIS Berlin Postproduction Award”. The award recognizes the best directorial achievement of a film from the “14 Films” section and will be presented at the end of the festival on Saturday, December 9, 2023.
This year's jury consists of producer Mariam Shatberashvili (“What do we see when we look up to the sky?”), director and screenwriter Süheyla Schwenk (“Jiyan”) and curator, moderator and film critic Toby Ashraf. The prize, worth 5,000 euros, is sponsored by BASIS BERLIN Postproduktion. “Today it is more important than ever to look at the world in its different cultural realities and ways of life beyond black and white pigeonholes. AROUND THE WORLD IN 14 FILMS proves time and again how helpful international cinema can be in this respect, with cinematic perspectives from all corners of the globe. We are delighted to be a part of this world tour as a prize sponsor,” says Frieda Oberlin, Managing Director of BASIS BERLIN Postproduction.
Mariam Shatberashvili was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and grew up in Germany. From 2016, she studied production at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). In 2020, she founded the production company New Matter Films together with Luise Hauschild. Her first production, Alexandre Koberidze's “What do we see when we look at the sky?” screened in the 2021 Berlinale Competition and was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize. In 2022, Shatberashvili was honored with the No Fear Award of the FIRST STEPS Awards for her work on “What Do We See When We Look to the Sky?”.
Director and screenwriter Süheyla Schwenk was born in Sweden/Gothenburg and grew up in Turkey, where she studied acting and graduated with a master's degree. She moved to Berlin in 2009 and studied directing at the DFFB and EICTV in Cuba. Her first feature film “Jiyan” and her short films won numerous awards at national and international festivals. Her short film “Sevince” celebrated its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in 2016. During her studies, she began working as a director for television and streaming. She recently shot a series for Disney+, in which she also worked as a directing coach.
Toby Ashraf works as a curator, presenter and film critic. He has written for taz, Sissy and numerous other publications and moderates film and literature talks for the Berlinale and the international literature festival berlin, among others. In 2014, he founded the Berlin Art Film Festival, which he curated and directed until 2018. Toby Ashraf has curated film series for the Goethe Institutes of North America and Calcutta, among others, and was part of the advisory selection committee of the Panorama section of the Berlinale in 2022. In 2023, he was artistic co-director of FIRST STEPS - the German Newcomer Award. In 2015, he won the Siegfried Kracauer Prize for Best Film Criticism.
BASIS BERLIN Postproduktion GmbH was founded in 2006 and is based in a historic industrial building on the border between Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg. As a leading service provider for sound editing, Basis expanded its portfolio in the field of image editing in summer 2021. Its team includes industry-renowned specialists from sound design, mixing, grading, conforming and mastering of feature films, series and commercials to their restoration and archiving. BASIS BERLIN offers the complete technical-creative finishing in an informal atmosphere at the highest international level.
The 18th edition of the festival will take place from December 1-9, 2023 at the KulturBrauerei cinema in Berlin and at the delphi LUX, Neues Off and Rollberg cinemas. The main sponsors for 2023 are Audi City Berlin, ARTE, CineStar and KWK / Karl-Wilhelm Kayser.
Photos: Süheyla Schwenk © private, Toby Ashraf © Nihat Karaarslan, Mariam Shatberashvili © New Matter Films
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