Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof's anthology film brings together four short stories dealing with individual freedom and the death penalty. Acts of resistance in the film reflect Rasoulof's own decision to defy Iran's authorities, who've banned him from filmmaking, confiscated his passport and sentenced him to prison. The powerful work is crowned with the Berlinale's top award, the Golden Bear.

Eliza Hittman directed a brilliant portrait of two teens from rural Pennsylvania who travel to New York City to seek out medical help to end an unplanned pregnancy. In the role of Autumn, Sidney Flanigan (photo) displays a range of understated emotions. The hard-hitting abortion drama wins the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize.

Alongside Bong Joon-ho of "Parasite" fame, Hong Sangsoo is one of the most revered filmmakers of South Korea. In the director's minimalist style characterized by lots of dialogue and zooms, "The Woman Who Ran" is a sensitive and humorous study of a woman's journey of self-discovery as she encounters three friends.

According to a German myth that's influenced countless works, Undine is a mesmerizing water spirit. This translates into wondrous aquatic scenes in Christian Petzold's film. Portrayed by Paula Beer, the title character is the most informative museum guide in Berlin, but also a dangerous woman to fall in love with... Beer's ghostly performance is definitely worthy of a Silver Bear.

Italian painter Antonio Ligabue was one the most important naive artists of the 20th century. The film "Hidden Away" portrays the man's difficult life affected by mental illness. Elio Germano is completely transformed in this very physical role, earning him the Silver Bear for best actor.

Recognized with a Silver Bear for their screenplay, brothers Fabio and Damiano D'Innocenzo were also the directors of this dark and unnerving fairy tale set in a sterile residential estate in the suburbs of Rome. Incidentally, actor Elio Germano also stars in this other prize-worthy film from Italy.

The controversial production of Ilya Khrzhanovsky's "DAU. Natasha" has made many headlines. German cinematographer Jürgen Jürges, legendary for his work with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, also had to deal with his own set of challenges for the epic project, filming in a semi-documentary style with a single camera as the film's participants "lived their lives." The jury recognized his exceptional work.

Many films competing at the Berlin film fest were dark, but this satire by French directors Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern was absolutely hilarious. Portraying three friends who decide to fight against tech giants, "Delete History" comments on the absurdities of the digital age. The film was recognized with a special Silver Bear for the 70th anniversary of the Berlinale.

The Berlinale Documentary Award goes to Cambodian documentary film director Rithy Panh, whose work "Irradiated" was featured in the competition section. The meditative essay against historical forgetting mainly features a montage of archival footage of war in the 20th century.

The Cold War was part of the picture at the Berlinale. Stars coming to the city, such as Italian diva Claudia Cardinale, would often pose in front of the Berlin Wall. A bizarre juxtaposition emerges from these shots, with the grinning glamour of Hollywood set against the backdrop of a divide that caused suffering for many people, not only in Berlin, but on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Berlin's film festival has upped the glitz and glamor in recent years, as attested by the timeline of fascinating images on show at the exhibition, "Between the Films — A Photo History of the Berlinale." Here in 2010, Leonardo DiCaprio thrilled fans on the red carpet by stopping to take a few snapshots. In today's smartphone era, the camera he's holding already feels old school.

In 1955, the Berlinale was held for the fifth time. Great sums were investing in publicity and marketing. Ten years after the end of World War II, the German Federal Republic wanted to show it was culturally anchored in the West. Posters promoting the festival were also widely present in communist East Berlin. World stars such as Peter Ustinov (pictured) contributed to the hype of the event.

In 1961, the Berlinale was still held at the end of June. While the instability of world politics was most directly felt in Berlin, Willy Brandt, then the city's mayor and later West German chancellor, was still beaming as he shook hands with Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield (accompanied by her husband, Mickey Hargitay). Five months later, the construction of the Berlin Wall would start.

The Berlinale was also held in 1962, despite the recently constructed Berlin Wall newly dividing the city. Photographer Heinz Köster took this shot of Hollywood star James Stewart in front of the Telefunken-Haus on Ernst-Reuter Square, a skyscraper completed in 1960. Berlin can still be chilly in the summer — at least that's the impression given by the way the actor is shivering.

In the wake of the revolutionary movements of 1968, the Berlin film festival would also be transformed by a leftward shift that celebrated daring, auteur filmmaking. Ten years later, film critic Wolf Donner (pictured center), who took on the direction of the Berlinale in 1976, moved the film festival from June to February, giving it an edge over Cannes, which is held in May.

In 1988, the atmosphere of political change could again be felt in Berlin as Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika policies took hold, with Aleksandr Askoldov’s "The Commissar" screening after a long ban in the Soviet Union. Also that year, filmmaker Agnes Varda premiered two films starring Jane Birkin (pictured), the drama "Kung Fu Master" and the docudrama "Jane B. par Agnès V."

After filming "One Two Three" in West Berlin in 1961 while the Wall was being built, director Billy Wilder returned to the German capital and its film festival over three decades later. He is shown here with Horst Buchholz, the lead actor of his Cold War film, the two standing in the slush in front of the Brandenburg Gate in February, 1993.

Dieter Kosslick became the festival director in 2001, giving a new impetus to the venerated celebration of film. A promoter of German cinema, he also boosted the level of glamour on the red carpet and brought more color to the festival. He personally accompanied guest stars to their film premieres, and often wore his trademark black hat — as he is pictured here alongside Judi Dench in 2007.

The "Between the Films – A Photo History of the Berlinale" exhibition — on show at the German Cinematheque in Berlin from September 28, 2018 through May 5, 2019 — is also a tribute to the work of the festival's press photographers. Erika Rabau, shown here taking a well-earned nap at the 1995 festival, was the Berlinale's official photographer from 1972 until shorty before her death in 2016.