‘Hamnet’ Composer Max Richter to Receive Berlin Film Festival Camera Honor From Chloé Zhao

German-born British composer Max Richter, who recently collaborated with Chloé Zhao on her Golden Globe-winning “Hamnet,” will be celebrated by the Berlin Film Festival with its Berlinale Camera award.

Richter, whose credits besides “Hamnet” include titles such as “Waltz with Bashir,” “Ad Astra,” “Mary Queen of Scots” and HBO series “The Leftovers,” will receive the Berlin honor from Zhao on Feb. 18, at Berlin’s Haus der Berliner Festspiele, followed by a panel discussion.

The composer, whose work combines classical techniques with electronic elements, is also known for solo projects such as his seminal 2004 album “The Blue Notebooks,” and his magnum opus “Sleep” (2015), an 8.5-hour exploration of sound and the sleeping mind, co-created with Yulia Mahr. Richter’s latest solo album “In A Landscape” was released in 2024.

“With over one billion streams and numerous awards — including the European Film Award for ‘Waltz with Bashir’ and a Grammy nomination for “Ad Astra” — Richter has left a lasting mark on contemporary film music,” the fest said in a statement.

“Max Richter is one of the great contemporary composers, and film fans can count themselves lucky that he has such a profound passion for cinema,” Berlinale Director Tricia Tuttle said in the statement. “His compositions for film are more than accompaniment; they are narratives that make the heart of a story audible and deepen and transform the cinematic language.”

Richter has long-standing ties to the Berlin fest. In 2009, he served as a mentor at the Berlinale Talent Campus (now called Berlinale Talents). He returned most recently in 2024 for the world premiere of Johan Renck’s sc-fi film “Spaceman,” starring Adam Sandler, for which he wrote the score.

Previous Berlinale Camera Award honorees include Agnes Varda, Rainer Rother, Richard Linklater, and Edgar Reitz. 

The upcoming 76th Berlin Film Festival will run Feb. 12-22.