Tilda Swinton - Berlin International Film Festival

Open on original site ↗

14 Feb 2025 #Berlinale #TildaSwinton #Awards

ON SOURCE: BERLINALE

Tilda Swinton - Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear acceptance speech

Acceptance speech of Tilda Swinton, recipient of the Honorary Golden Bear for her lifetime achievement at the festive opening of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival on February 13th, 2025.

An excerpt from the transcript:

We can head for the great independent state of Cinema and rest there, an unlimited realm, innately inclusive, immune to efforts of occupation, colonisation, takeover, ownership... or the development of riviera properties.

A borderless realm, and with no policy of exclusion, persecution, or deportation. No known address, no visa required. It's so very, very good for us to wonder at the world, and to be surprised by admiration for each other, rather than shocked speechless by our cavalier mean-spiritedness and cruelty. To notice our myriad variations and to unite in celebrating them, rather than resign ourselves to a submission to entitled domination and the astonishing savagery of spite.

State perpetrated and internationally enabled mass murder is currently actively terrorising more than one part of our world, currently condemned by the very bodies specifically set up by humans, to monitor things on earth unacceptable to human society.

These are facts. They need to be faced. So for the sake of clarity, let’s name it. The inhumane is being perpetrated on our watch. I'm here to name it without hesitation or doubt in my mind and to lend my unwavering solidarity to all those who recognise the unacceptable complacency of our greed addicted governments who make nice with planet wreckers and war criminals, wherever they come from.

I'm also here to name my absolute personal faith in culture in resistance. An enlightened Cinema can inspire a civilised world, can lend us the pause, the breath, the reflection that might embolden us to take the best part of ourselves…

ON SOURCE: BERLINALE