Hours after the film won the Golden Bear for best film at the first-ever virtual 2021 Berlin International Film Festival, Romanian director Radu Jude took aim at what he called the “bullshit of red carpets” and the false glamour of in-person film festivals. Jude said he was “quite happy” not to have had to attend a fancy awards gala in Berlin on Friday to receive his Golden Bear. “The essence of cinema is to be a serious art, a serious discipline — I would like it to be treated seriously,” said Jude, who sharply criticized the “fancy dresses and costumes” on display at a typical awards ceremony. “My belief in cinema doesn’t have anything to do with this kind of clowning around,” he added. He used book fairs to support his view by saying “If you go to a book fair, there are no people in fancy dresses. It’s people who love books, authors who wrote the books, they meet their audience and that’s it.” But several people have pointed out that book fairs aren’t the same as award ceremonies. Also, a few years ago, the National Book Awards dinner, considered one of the most prestigious in the U.S., decided they would revamp their program to be an Oscar-style red carpet ceremony in order to turn what they called a “once-dowdy event” into a glamorous party to draw more people.
