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40th Berlin International Film Festival

1990 film festival edition

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ466351 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 40th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 9 to 20 February 1990. The festival opened with Steel Magnolias by Herbert Ross, which was shown out of competition.

The Golden Bear was awarded ex aequo to the American film Music Box directed by Costa-Gavras and Czechoslovak film Larks on a String directed by Jiří Menzel.

The retrospective of this edition included two programs: The Year 1945, dedicated to international productions released in 1945, and 40 Years Berlinale, dedicated to some of the most significant films presented during the past editions of the festival.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “40th Berlin International Film Festival” is 1990 film festival edition. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through 40th, Berlin and International, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1990, 1945—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, 40th, Berlin and International is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1990 film festival edition” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q466351. Authority coordinates are 52.520, 13.380. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990 and 1945.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “40th Berlin International Film Festival”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 40th Berlin International Film Festival primary sources, 40th Berlin International Film Festival archive and 40th research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “40th Berlin International Film Festival”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “40th Berlin International Film Festival” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.