Berlinale 2026: the Golden Bear for Yellow Letters and the festival’s other main prizes

On February 21, 2026, in Berlin, the juries of the 76th Berlin International Film Festival announced their awards, and the Golden Bear for Best Film went to Gelbe Briefe (Yellow Letters), directed by İlker Çatak and produced by Ingo Fliess. The festival’s own list of winners runs to dozens of prizes, from its main competition to the Generation competitions judged by a children’s jury and a youth jury. This guide sets out the main ones, who decided them and what has happened to the winning films since, as the festival and other official bodies record it.

The International Jury’s prizes

The International Jury, which the festival director selects each year, was led by Wim Wenders as its president. Its other members were Min Bahadur Bham, Bae Doona, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Reinaldo Marcus Green, HIKARI and Ewa Puszczyńska. Besides the Golden Bear, it gave seven Silver Bears. In the two previous years, the festival’s own pages show, the Golden Bear went to Mati Diop’s Dahomey in 2024 and to Dag Johan Haugerud’s Drømmer (Dreams (Sex Love)) in 2025.

By our count, Queen at Sea is the only film that won two of the jury’s eight awards: the Silver Bear Jury Prize and the supporting performance prize, which the jury shared between two of its actors. The other six awards went to six different films.

First features, documentaries and shorts

Separate juries handle other parts of the program. The Perspectives jury, made up of Sofia Alaoui, Frédéric Hambalek and Dorota Lech, gave the Best First Feature Award, funded by GWFF and worth €50,000, to Chronicles From the Siege by Abdallah Alkhatib, with a special mention for Forêt Ivre (Forest High) by Manon Coubia.

The Berlinale Documentary Award, worth €40,000, went to If Pigeons Turned to Gold by Pepa Lubojacki. Its jury of Lemohang Mosese, B Ruby Rich and Shaunak Sen added special mentions for TUTU, directed by Sam Pollard, and for Was an Empfindsamkeit bleibt (Sometimes, I Imagine Them All at a Party) by Daniela Magnani Hüller.

Among short films, the Golden Bear for Best Short Film went to Yawman ma walad (Someday a Child) by Marie-Rose Osta and the short film Silver Bear Jury Prize to A Woman’s Place Is Everywhere by Fanny Texier. The short film jury also named Cosmonauts, by Leo Černic, as Berlin’s short film candidate for the European Film Awards.

Films for young viewers, and the audience’s choices

In the Generation Kplus and 14plus competitions, a children’s jury and a youth jury award Crystal Bears, and an international jury gives its own prizes. By the festival’s list, the two kinds of jury picked the same films at the top in 2026. Feito Pipa (Gugu’s World), by Allan Deberton, took both the Crystal Bear and the international jury’s Grand Prix in Generation Kplus. Chicas Tristes (Sad Girlz), by Fernanda Tovar, did the same in Generation 14plus. Audiences voted for Staatsschutz (Prosecution), by Faraz Shariat, as the Panorama section’s feature film and for Traces, by Alisa Kovalenko and Marysia Nikitiuk, as its documentary.

Honorary awards

The festival gave its Honorary Golden Bear to Michelle Yeoh, and its archive names Sean Baker as the laudator, the speaker who paid tribute to her. Its Berlinale Camera, the other honorary award it lists for 2026, went to Haile Gerima and to Max Richter.

Where the winners stand now

According to German Films, the Golden Bear has opened an Oscar route for Yellow Letters. It said on August 25, 2026, that rule changes the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made in the spring let films that win major prizes at selected festivals be submitted for the International Feature Film category, and that the Golden Bear qualifies Yellow Letters. Germany’s own selection, made by a jury that German Films appointed, is Sandra Wollner’s Everytime. Our guide to the 99th Oscars rules explains the festival route.

The same release says Yellow Letters opened in German cinemas on March 5, 2026, through Alamode Film, that Be For Films handles its international sales, and that it was co-produced with Haut et Court in France and Liman Film in Turkey. It names no North American distributor for the film.

The European Film Academy’s shortlists for its 2027 awards, as its website showed them on November 12, 2026, include three of the festival’s winners in fiction: Yellow Letters, Kurtuluş (Salvation) and Rose. Traces, the Panorama audience’s documentary, is on the documentary shortlist, and Cosmonauts on the short film list. Our European Film Awards guide has the nomination and ceremony dates.

The next festival is already scheduled. The 77th Berlin International Film Festival runs from February 10 to 21, 2027, and its program will be presented at a press conference on January 20, 2027, according to the festival’s dates page.