Mexican cinema left a strong mark on the recently concluded 76th Berlin International Film Festival, where the features “Moscas” and “Chicas tristes” earned awards for presenting stories of intimacy, youth and violence from Mexico.
“Moscas” (“Flies”), directed by Fernando Eimbcke won the festival’s Ecumenical Jury Prize and the Berliner Morgenpost Reader Award.
It was also in competition for the Golden Bear, the festival’s top prize, which went to “Yellow Letters” by German director İlker Çatak.
Meanwhile, “Chicas tristes” (“Sad Girls”) won two best film awards in Generation 14plus, a category dedicated to young audiences. One, the Crystal Bear, was awarded by a youth jury, and the other, the Grand Prix, was decided upon by a jury of film professionals and came with a prize of 7,500 euros (151,870 pesos).
Fernanda Tovar’s feature-length directorial debut, which she also wrote, is about two teenage friends confronting the aftermath of sexual violence.
The 90-minute film drew praise from jurors for its calm, uncertainty and strength, and for depicting friendship and solidarity frame by frame.
Producer Daniel Loustaunau said the awards were dedicated “to all the resistance movements and young people who fight against genocide, forced displacement and violence,” in comments to the newspaper El Universal.
Eimbcke’s “Moscas” is a 99-minute drama-comedy that follows an introverted woman who shares her home with a father and his young son so they can be near their wife/mother, who is hospitalized with advanced cancer.
The film, which charts an unlikely bond that grows out of grief and routine, has already secured distribution in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland, according to El Universal.
Onstage in Berlin, Eimbcke — whose coming-of-age film “Olmo” drew praise but didn’t win any prizes at the 2025 Morelia International Film Festival — used his acceptance speeches to link the emotional core of “Moscas” to global crises.
He denounced the persecution of migrant children by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and cited the case of a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy detained with his father in Minnesota. The man born in Mexico City in 1970 also urged action over the war in Gaza.
“More than 17,000 children have been killed in Gaza in the last two years. I must raise my voice and I ask all governments and organizations to raise their voices as well,” he said in remarks reported by the newspaper La Jornada. “This award is dedicated to all children around the world.”
Beyond the prizes, Mexican work was visible across the Berlinale — a shorthand name for the Berlin International Film Festival.
Other Mexican works included the youth-focused short “When I Get Home” and the short documentary “Miriam,” as well as nine Mexican filmmakers who were selected for the Berlinale Talents training program.
With reports from El Universal, IMCINE and La Jornada
