BERLIN, Feb 18 (Reuters) - British composer Max Richter received the Berlinale Camera award for his special contribution to filmmaking on Wednesday at a ceremony with Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao, with whom he recently collaborated on the Shakespearean drama "Hamnet."
"Max's music has this really magical ability to pull me back into my body," Zhao said. "He knows how to hold the tension in the liminal space between to be and not to be."
The Berlinale Camera has been awarded at the Berlin Film Festival since 1986, with past recipients including Isabella Rossellini, Meryl Streep and Richard Linklater.
Richter has been nominated for an Oscar for the first time for his score for "Hamnet," one of a total of eight nominations for the film starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley.
Richter, known for his scores for films such as "Waltz with Bashir" and "Ad Astra," told the audience that when he thinks about his music, he concentrates on every little atom of the sound.
"Are they communicating as powerfully as they can? Do they feel inevitable? I'm looking for that sensation of 'it could only be this way' in a piece of music," he said.
"And that means throwing away like 90 percent of the work all the time and just keeping that last little bit."
