Germany’s most prestigious film festival, The Berlinale, has come to a close. The winner of the Golden Bear prize for best film was a small film from Peru, called “The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada)”.

The Milk of Sorrow is an unlikely winner — a slow-paced drama about the attempts of a daughter to bury her recently-deceased mother in her home village. The film is set against Peru’s violent 1980s; a decade in which the Shining Path was fully operational and guerrilla attempts to bring about a turn to communism were met with deadly force by an overzealous government.

The daughter suffers from an affliction known popularly as La Teta Asustada — an imaginary (?) illness which is passed through the breast milk of mothers who have been raped. Check out the (Spanish-only) trailer:

Did any of our Berlin-based users get a chance to see this film? Is the praise well-placed?