DFFB looks back on an excit­ing and suc­cess­ful 2019 Berli­nale

What a Berli­nale! We are incred­i­bly proud of our stu­dents and alum­ni who pre­sent­ed so many great films in almost all sec­tions of the fes­ti­val. In only 10 days, 14 of their films were shown 60 times on the cin­e­ma screens of Germany’s capital—and there were award win­ners!

 

4 films screened in Forum or Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino

Sara Sum­ma, Miri­am Bliese, and Simona Kostova—three tal­ent­ed women direc­tors from the DFFB cel­e­brat­ed their fea­ture films’ respec­tive world and Ger­man pre­mieres at the Berli­nale. While Sara Sum­ma enjoyed a suc­cess­ful world pre­miere in Forum with GLI ULTIMI A VEDERLI VIVERE, Miri­am Bliese’s DIE EINZELTEILE DER LIEBE was pre­sent­ed to the audi­ence for the first time in Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino. DREISSIG by Simona Kos­to­va received its Ger­man pre­miere at the Berli­nale and—winner of this year’s Max Ophüls Prize—DAS MELANCHOLISCHE MÄDCHEN by Susanne Hein­rich made a guest appear­ance in Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino.
We wish our tal­ent­ed direc­tors con­tin­ued suc­cess!

 

Awards for DFFB grad­u­ates

We warm­ly con­grat­u­late our alum­na Angela Schan­elec who won the Sil­ver Bear for Best Direc­tor. With ICH WAR ZU HAUSE, ABER the Berlin direc­tor took part in the Berli­nale com­pe­ti­tion for the first time and impressed the inter­na­tion­al jury with ele­ments of the Berlin School—a film with long, spa­cious takes, and silence.

Con­grat­u­la­tions also go out to the team of SYSTEMSPRENGER, espe­cial­ly to direc­tor Nora Fin­gschei­dt and DFFB alum­nus and pro­duc­er Jonas Wey­de­mann, who were award­ed the Sil­ver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize by the jury. The prize has been award­ed since 1987 to com­pe­ti­tion fea­ture films that pro­vide new per­spec­tives on the art of film­mak­ing. The prize was named after the first direc­tor of the fes­ti­val Alfred Bauer. SYSTEMSPRENGER also received the Berlin­er Mor­gen­post Read­ers’ Jury Prize.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the Com­pass-Per­spek­tive-Award, endowed with €5,000, was giv­en to a film with DFFB par­tic­i­pa­tion. We con­grat­u­late BORN IN EVIN by Maryam Zaree, who worked on the film with DFFB alum­na and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Siri Klug, for receiv­ing the award for the best film from the cur­rent pro­gramme of Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino.

We also con­grat­u­late DFFB grad­u­ate Ana-Feli­cia Scutel­nicu, who was award­ed the Kom­pagnon-Fel­low­ship for her treat­ment TRANSIT TIMES. The prize, joint­ly giv­en by Berli­nale Tal­ents and Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino, offers a fel­low­ship of €5,000 for inde­pen­dent script and project devel­op­ment, a men­tor­ing pro­gramme to strength­en the director’s cre­ative vision, as well as coach­ing to improve net­work­ing with­in the indus­try.

 

HAGAZUSSA cel­e­brates suc­cess dur­ing the Berlin Critic’s Week

A DFFB grad­u­ate was award­ed a cov­et­ed prize dur­ing the Berlin Critic’s Week—for her extra­or­di­nary work on HAGAZUSSA, our grad­u­ate and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Mariel Baque­iro received the prize for Best Cam­era giv­en by
the Ger­man Film Crit­ics Asso­ci­a­tion. We would like to con­grat­u­late HAGAZUSSA on win­ning this award, anoth­er prize to add to its col­lec­tion after the film received the FIRST STEPS AWARDS 2018.

 

Julian Radlmeier brings home the Gold­en Lola for the best unfilmed script

Anoth­er rea­son to cel­e­brate: DFFB alum­nus Julian Radl­maier was award­ed the Gold­en Lola 2019 for the best unfilmed script for his treat­ment BLUTSAUGER. The prize, endowed with €10,000, was pre­sent­ed at the recep­tion of the Ver­band Deutsch­er Drehbuchau­toren (VDD) by Moni­ka Grüt­ters, the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and Media.

Wow! Con­grat­u­la­tions to all stu­dents and alum­ni on being invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the fes­ti­val and espe­cial­ly to the prizewin­ners! We are look­ing for­ward to the next sea­son and can only add one thing: Keep up the good work!