We are delight­ed to announce that DFFB grad­u­ate Lothar Her­zog won the 2019 Hof Gold Prize of the Friedrich Baur Foun­da­tion for his film 1986 dur­ing the award cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day evening. The Bavar­i­an Acad­e­my of Fine Arts in mem­o­ry of Heinz Bade­witz award­ed Her­zog a cer­ti­fied gold bar of 1 kg of fine gold worth approx­i­mate­ly €43,000. The prize also fea­tures a year of cre­ative advice to the direc­tor regard­ing the devel­op­ment of a new film.

Direc­tor Edgar Reitz (whose films include HEIMAT, DIE ANDERE HEIMAT) was the men­tor for the Hof Gold Prize 2018, which was award­ed to Luzie Loose for SCHWIMMEN. This year Bern­hard Sinkel, direc­tor, screen­writer, pro­duc­er, and head of the film depart­ment of the Bavar­i­an Acad­e­my of Fine Arts, has tak­en over this task.

The film is a co-pro­duc­tion of Rohfilm Pro­duc­tions GmbH and DFFB.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Lothar Her­zog and his whole team!

Pho­to­cre­d­it: Hofer Film­tage

This year—like pre­vi­ous years—several DFFB films will screen at the 53rd Inter­na­tion­al Hof Film Fes­ti­val, one of the old­est and most impor­tant film fes­ti­vals in Ger­many:

1986 (Dir./Script: Lothar Her­zog, Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Philipp Baben der Erbe, Prod.: Romana Janik, Ben­ny Drech­sel) will screen in the fea­ture film com­pe­ti­tion sec­tion. 1986 won the NO FEAR Award at First Steps and cel­e­brat­ed its world pre­miere at the 15th Zurich Film Fes­ti­val.

Chichinette — How I Acci­den­tal­ly Became a Spy (Dir./Script: Nico­la Alice Hens, Prod.: Amos Geva), which just won the Spe­cial Men­tion Award at the 35th HAIFA Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, will screen in the doc­u­men­tary com­pe­ti­tion sec­tion.

Both films will cel­e­brate their Ger­man pre­miere at the fes­ti­val.

Four short films from the DFFB will also be pre­sent­ed:

CHAOS (Dir./Script/Prod.: Samuel Auer, Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Lukas Eylandt)
FREISCHWIMMER (Dir.: Gaya von Schwarze, Script: Mirko Rachor, Gaya von Schwarze, Josephine Oleak, Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Raban Jakob Friedrich, Prod.: Ibrahim-Utku Erdo­gan, Leonie Schäfer)
NIGHTFALL (Dir./Script: Jose­fine Schef­fler, Prod.: Grischa Saut­ter)
REVOLVO (Dir./Script: Fran­cy Fab­ritz, Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Anto­nia Lange, Prod.: Sara Fazi­lat).

And our alum­ni will be present at the fes­ti­val too: Con­nie Walther with her film DIE RÜDEN. Der Film, Flo­ri­an Aign­er with ImNie­mand­s­land, and Jan Speck­en­bach with A.N.N.A.

We wish every­one a suc­cess­ful screen­ing. Enjoy the excit­ing dis­cus­sions, and we’re keep­ing our fin­gers crossed for the award cer­e­mo­ny!

The grad­u­a­tion film CHICHINETTE – HOW I ACCIDENTALLY BECAME A SPY by DFFB grad­u­ate Nico­la Alice Hens cel­e­brat­ed its world pre­miere last week at the 35th HAIFA Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val and won the Spe­cial Men­tion Award.

99-year-old Martha Cohn accept­ed the award per­son­al­ly. Con­grat­u­la­tions to the whole team!

©Ziv Amar

About the film:

The doc­u­men­tary tells the sto­ry of the French spy of Jew­ish ori­gin Marthe Cohn, bet­ter known as Chichinette, who after 60 years, final­ly breaks her silence and tells her extra­or­di­nary sto­ry. It is the sto­ry of a woman who, at just 4 feet 5 inch­es in height, beats the odds and fights the Nazis as a spy. At the age of 99, she now tours the world shar­ing her mes­sage to all gen­er­a­tions.