Rose Byrne scoops top award at Berlin Film Festival
Rose Byrne has scooped the Berlin Film Festival award for best performance for her lead role in the comedy-drama If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
The Balmain-born X-Men actor plays an overwhelmed and exhausted mother desperately seeking a cure for her daughter’s mystery illness. Written and directed by Mary Bronstein and also starring Conan O’Brien, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You premiered last month at the Sundance Film Festival.
“Thank you so much, I’m so flattered to even be here,” she said on receiving the award.
Rose Byrne poses with her Silver Bear for best lead performance.Credit: Getty Images
A Norwegian film about love, desire and self-discovery won top honours at the 75th festival in the German capital.
A jury headed by American director Todd Haynes awarded the Golden Bear trophy to Dreams (Sex Love) by director Dag Johan Haugerud.
Haynes called it a “meditation on love” that “cuts you to the quick with its keen intelligence”.
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The film focuses on a teenager, played by Ella Øverbyer, who is infatuated with her female French teacher and the reactions of her mother and grandmother when they discover her private writings. It’s the third part of a trilogy Haugerud has completed in the past year. Sex premiered at Berlin in 2024, and Love was screened at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.
The runner-up Silver Bear prize went to Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro’s dystopian drama The Blue Trail. Argentine director Ivan Fund’s rural saga The Message won the third-place Jury Prize.
