It took 68 editions of the Berlin Film Festival, and 57 awards for best director, but an animated film director finally won the festival’s Silver Bear for best director.
Wes Anderson, 48, won the best director prize for his stop-motion film Isle of Dogs, which also made history as the first animated film to open Berlin, a historic event from which Cartoon Brew reported earlier this month.
Anderson was not present to accept the award on Saturday night, but one of Isle of Dog’s voice actors, Bill Murray, accepted in his place, telling the audience: “I never thought I’d go to work as a dog and come home with a bear. I’m glad I was deputized to watch the house here in case anything like this broke out… I’d like to be one more person from America to say ‘Ich bin ein Berliner Hund.'” (‘I am a Berlin dog.’)