Mexican filmmaker’s Cop Movie wins Silver Bear at Berlin festival

March 5, 2021

A scene from the award-winning film, which depicts a dysfunctional law enforcement system in Mexico City.

A film by acclaimed Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios has garnered a Silver Bear for editing at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

The 2021 film Una Película de Policías (A Cop Movie), about two actors who undergo an immersive process to find out what it takes to be a cop in Mexico City and end up being taken aback by a dysfunctional law enforcement system, won the award for outstanding artistic contribution, for what the jury said was “the masterful editing concept of a daring, innovative work of cinema which blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality and boldly explores the cinematic language’s ability to shift our perspective on the world.”

Ruizpalacios said of his latest film’s win that he wanted to make a movie with social impact, “or that at least addressed some of the pressing questions in Mexican society.”

The Berlin jury had high praise for the skills of the film’s editor, Yibrán Asuad, who won the award.

“Playing an essential role in supporting the filmmaker’s unique vision, the montage skillfully deconstructs the multiple layers of reality and language to offer an in-depth, thought-provoking look into one of Mexico’s most controversial institutions,” jury officials said.

Asuad has edited multiple films for Ruizpalacios, including 2014’s Güeros — which won Ruizpalacios the festival’s best first feature prize that year — and the film Museum, which won the festival’s Silver Bear for best director in 2018 and featured actors Gael García Bernal and Simon Russell Beale. He is not only a well-established editor in the Mexican film industry, with more than 30 editing credits to his name, he has also directed films and television episodes since 2006, including the films The Thief and All The Sins of the World and episodes of the hit Mexican Netflix series The House of Flowers.

The Berlin festival, which was conducted virtually this year due to Covid-19, announced the winners Friday, the last day of the event. The awards organization plans to deliver the awards in person in June.