Director Huo Meng Photo: IC

Chinese director Huo Meng won the Silver Bear prize for best director at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival for his film Living the Land, a story about four generations of Chinese farmers, the China News Service reported on Sunday.

Produced by Chinese actress Yao Chen, the film, which focuses on rural life in northern China during the 1990s, makes use of the local dialect. 

"The Berlin Film Festival favors social realism and historical significance," Shi Wenxue, a veteran cultural critic based in Beijing, told the Global Times. It is a film with a realistic theme that tells the story of the demise of clan structures and rural ecology under urbanization. This is why the film was submitted to the Berlin Film Festival, and why the festival awarded it a major prize. It's a mutual selection." 

Shi also noted that the film won other awards at the 35th Golden Rooster Awards Films Project Market in 2022. Guan Hu, a Chinese director had repeatedly expressed admiration for the project: "In my view, a film can not only be a commercial film and a social warning but also document an era. I believe this film, once completed, will have significant value."

A film review from Variety wrote that Living the Land is "never dull, thanks to a wealth of incident and the complexity of relationships in Huo's extended family portrait - which shares its multi-generational breadth and vivid rooting in Central China's Henan Province."

Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud's Dreams took home the Golden Bear for best film. The film explores the understanding of love across different generations of women. The most significant awards at the Berlin Film International Festival, the Golden Bear and Silver Bear prizes are regarded as some of the most prestigious honors in the film industry. 

These awards are presented by an international jury in the main competition section. A total of 19 films were in the running for the main competition, including two Chinese films: Girls on Wire by director Wen Yan and Living the Land by director Huo Meng.

It is worth noting that this is the first time in six years that a Chinese-language film has won an award at one of the "Big Three" European film festivals, and the first time in 24 years that a Chinese film has won the Best Director award in Berlin, reports said.

From Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth in 1984 to Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern in 1991, and more recently, Diao Yinan's Black Coal, Thin Ice in 2014, many Chinese filmmakers have received critical recognition in Berlin, with several going on to win the Golden Bear and other prizes.

Other winners at the 2025 festival include Grand Jury prize winner The Blue Trail directed by Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro, Argentine director Ivan Fund's The Message, which took home the Jury Prize, and Australian actress Rose Byrne, who clinched the Best Performance award for her role in If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You.

The jury for the main competition was chaired by US independent filmmaker Todd Haynes, a multiple Oscar nominee known for works like Far from Heaven. Other jury members included Moroccan-French director Nabil Ayouch and German director Maria Schrader.

The Berlin International Film Festival is one of Europe's "Big Three" film festivals, alongside the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals.