How far can we decide the course of a family member’s life on their behalf? Amanda (Juliette Binoche) and her stepfather Martin (Tom Courtenay) clash fiercely over Leslie (Anna Calder-Marshall), who suffers from severe dementia. Love and violence, autonomy and intrusion, protection and control—the sharper the conflict grows, the harder it becomes to judge. When the camera, which has been trained on a frail body, widens its gaze to take in Amanda’s daughter who’s just awakening to sexual desire, two very different stages of life become connected through a single sensibility. Using meticulous framing to examine the dynamics of its relationships, Queen at Sea captures the predicament of deciding how another person should live out the rest of their life in the name of care. Lance Hammer’s second feature, arriving eighteen years after Ballast (2008), won the Silver Bear Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. The two actors who portrayed an elderly couple whose relationship resists easy definition also shared the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance.
A Los Angeles–based filmmaker who studied architecture at the University of Southern California. Hammer’s feature debut, Ballast (2008), won the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival, screened in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, and received six Independent Spirit Award nominations. Queen at Sea, his second feature, won the Silver Bear Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
