At the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, film expert and Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kinemathek Rainer Rother will be honoured with the Berlinale Camera.

Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle says: “We are honouring Rainer Rother for his many years of work in the service of preserving cinematic history and as a bridge builder between history and contemporary cinema. Under his leadership, the Deutsche Kinemathek has successfully made the living heritage of cinematic art accessible, created the conditions for digitisation and developed strategies to open it up to new audiences. We would especially like to thank Rainer Rother for his work as a passionate curator who has inspired countless visitors to the Berlinale with his work.”

The Berlinale Camera will be awarded to Rainer Rother on February 20, 2025, 2.30 pm at the Akademie der Künste on Hanseatenweg. The laudatory speech will be held by Thomas Krüger, President of the Federal Centre for Civic Education. As part of Berlinale Special, the award-winning Berlinale film Yella (2007) by Christian Petzold will be shown.

Dr. Rainer Rother has been Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kinemathek and head of the Berlinale Retrospective since April 2006. He is also responsible for Berlinale Classics. For the Berlinale, he has curated retrospectives of works by directors such as Buñuel and Bergman or with a thematic focus on the work of female directors or independent films from the Kinemathek’s archives, but also with film aesthetic reflections on innovative processes such as Technicolor or 70mm. Rainer Rother has published extensively on film history and is the author of several books. From 2001 to 2019, he was a member of the selection committee for the Berlinale Competition.

Since 1986, the Berlinale has honoured personalities and institutions who have rendered outstanding services to filmmaking and with whom the festival feels connected with the Berlinale Camera. The Berlinale Camera consists of 128 individual parts and is modelled on a real film camera. It is made by the Düsseldorf goldsmith Georg Hornemann.