21/02/2026 - BERLINALE 2026: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars has received the FIPRESCI Award for Best Competition Film, whilst Prosecution also picked up two further accolades

Prosecution [+see also:
film review
interview: Faraz Shariat
film profile] by Faraz Shariat and Traces [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Alisa Kovalenko and Marysia Nikitiuk have won the 28th Panorama Audience Awards at this year’s Berlinale (12-22 February). The list of awards, handed out in collaboration with radioeins and rbb television (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg), revealed that Shariat’s feature topped the fiction category, whilst Kovalenko and Nikitiuk’s effort triumphed in Panorama Dokumente. This year, more than 26,500 cinemagoers cast their votes across the strand’s 37 titles from 36 production countries, including 12 documentaries.

Prosecution follows young prosecutor Seyo Kim, who sets out to confront far-right violence in eastern Germany, but after surviving a racist attack herself, she defies her superiors to investigate alone, uncovering links to a wider extremist network and exposing how the justice system can minimalise – and even defend – such crimes.

Traces centres on activist Iryna Dovhan, a former captive who documents testimonies from Ukrainian women who survived conflict-related sexual violence during Russia’s war, bringing survivors together to transform their trauma into a collective fight for truth, justice and solidarity.

The award-winning films will be screened on Sunday 22 February at Zoo Palast following a short ceremony moderated by Knut Elstermann and presented by rbb director Ulrike Demmer.

The Panorama Audience Award has been presented since 1999 and, since 2011, has honoured both the best fiction feature and the best documentary. Audience members attending Panorama screenings throughout the festival vote on the titles via ballot cards.

Meanwhile, the winners of the independent awards were also announced today at midday. In detail, FIPRESCI handed out four prizes across the festival’s main sections. In Competition, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars [+see also:
film review
interview: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
film profile] (France/Chad) was honoured for its poetic and politically charged portrait of a young outsider in a desert community, praised by the jury for its “luminous magical realism” and feminist undercurrents. Marcelo Martinessi’s Narciso [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Paraguay/Germany/Uruguay/Brazil/Portugal/Spain/France) won in Panorama, with the movie singled out as a paranoia-tinged exploration of authoritarianism conveyed through sound, interiors and the nocturnal cityscape. In Forum, Yusuke Iwasaki’s AnyMart (Japan) scooped the prize for its sharp, darkly comic satire of contemporary Japanese youth caught between precarious work and family pressure, while Ashley Walters’ Animol (UK) took home the Perspectives Award, after being recognised for its raw depiction of life inside a detention centre and its nuanced portrayal of solidarity amid violence.

Notably, Prosecution also garnered the Heiner Carow Prize and the CICAE Art Cinema Award, whilst Iván & Hadoum [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Ian de la Rosa (Spain/Germany/Belgium) received the Teddy Award for Best Feature. The pic follows Iván, a greenhouse worker in southern Spain who falls for his new colleague Hadoum, but when a long-awaited promotion threatens their bond, he must choose between ambition and the person he wants to become.

Here is the full list of this year’s winners:

Panorama Audience Award Winner – Feature Film
Prosecution [+see also:
film review
interview: Faraz Shariat
film profile] – Faraz Shariat (Germany)

2nd Place Panorama Audience Award Winner – Feature Film
Four Minus Three [+see also:
film review
interview: Adrian Goiginger
film profile] – Adrian Goiginger (Austria/Germany)

3rd Place Panorama Audience Award Winner – Feature Film
Mouse – Kelly O’Sullivan, Alex Thompson (USA)

Panorama Audience Award Winner – Documentary
Traces [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Alisa Kovalenko, Marysia Nikitiuk (Ukraine/Poland)

2nd Place Panorama Audience Award Winner – Documentary
The Other Side of the Sun [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tawfik Sabouni
film profile] – Tawfik Sabouni (Belgium/France/Saudi Arabia)

3rd Place Panorama Audience Award Winner – Documentary
Bucks Harbor – Pete Muller (USA)

Ecumenical jury prizes

Prize Winner Competition
Flies – Fernando Eimbcke (Mexico)

Prize Winner Panorama
Bucks Harbor - Pete Muller

Prize Winner Forum
River Dreams – Kristina Mikhailova (Kazakhstan/Switzerland/UK)

FIPRESCI jury prizes

Prize Winner Competition
Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars [+see also:
film review
interview: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
film profile] – Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (France/Chad)

Prize Winner Perspectives
Animol – Ashley Walters (UK)

Prize Winner Panorama
Narciso [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] – Marcelo Martinessi (Paraguay/Germany/Uruguay/Brazil/Portugal/Spain/France)

Prize Winner Forum
AnyMart – Yusuke Iwasaki (Japan)

Teddy Awards

Best Fiction Feature
Iván & Hadoum [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] – Ian de la Rosa (Spain/Germany/Belgium)

Best Documentary
Barbara Forever – Brydie O’Connor (USA)

Best Short
Taxi Moto – Gaël Kamilindi (Switzerland/France)

Jury Award
Trial of Hein [+see also:
film review
interview: Kai Stänicke
film profile] – Kai Stänicke (Germany)

CICAE Art Cinema Award

Prize Winner Panorama
Prosecution - Faraz Shariat

Forum
On Our Own [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Tudor Cristian Jurgiu (Romania/Italy)

Guild Film Prize
Yellow Letters [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ilker Çatak
film profile] – İlker Çatak (Germany/France/Turkey)

Europa Cinemas Label
Four Minus Three – Adrian Goiginger

Caligari Film Prize
If Pigeons Turned to Gold [+see also:
film review
interview: Pepa Lubojacki
film profile] – Pepa Lubojacki (Czech Republic/Slovakia)

Peace Film Prize
TUTU [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Sam Pollard (UK)

Amnesty International Film Award
What Will I Become? – Lexie Bean, Logan Rozos (USA)

Heiner Carow Prize
Prosecution - Faraz Shariat

AG Kino – Gilde – Cinema Vision 14plus
What Will I Become? – Lexie Bean, Logan Rozos