The 54th Inter­na­tion­al Hofer Film Fes­ti­val has come to an end, and once again there were many offer­ings from the DFFB. “Home of Films” is the mot­to of the fes­ti­val, and it describes the suc­cess of our stu­dents and alum­ni well.

Two of our stu­dent films cel­e­brat­ed their world pre­miere at this fes­ti­val:

BABY BITCHKA (D: Anna Maria Roznows­ka, S: Anna Maria Roznows­ka & Tama­ra Erbe, C: Malte Siepen, P: Tama­ra Erbe) tells the sto­ry of Sascha (crazy, sexy, alco­holic, 23) who falls in love with Alexan­der (crazy, sexy, alco­holic, 60). It is the sto­ry of two peo­ple who fall in love with their alter egos.

DUC NGUYEN (D: Clara Zoe My-Linh von Arn­im, S: Sebas­t­ian Lad­wig, C: Raban Jakob Friedrich, P: Lucas Thiem & Jan­na Fodor) tells the sto­ry of three Ger­man-Viet­namese teenagers on a noc­tur­nal search for a motor­bike-rid­ing phan­tom who is cre­at­ing hav­oc on Berlin’s motor­ways…

LEIB (D/​S: Mar­i­jana Ver­hoef, C: Ley­la Hoppe, P: Ele­na Zur­buch & Elis­a­beth Köller) cel­e­brat­ed its Ger­man pre­miere in Hof. The film tells the sto­ry of a mys­te­ri­ous crea­ture who, as a farm­hand, appears in the life of an old wid­ow­er to help her on her farm. How­ev­er, when the crea­ture begins to devel­op human feel­ings, their lives take a dif­fer­ent turn.

DFFB alum­na and pro­duc­er Lena Vur­ma was award­ed the VGF’s high­est-endowed Ger­man prize for young pro­duc­ers, the VGF Young Pro­duc­er Award, worth 60,000 euros, for the pro­duc­tion of the fea­ture film ADVENTURES OF A MATHEMATICIAN.

DFFB alum­nus Mar­cus Lenz scored anoth­er suc­cess with his film RIVALE, which received the Förder­preis Neues Deutsches Kino for Best Film.

And last but not least, direc­tor Emi­ly Atef, also an alum­na of the DFFB, was award­ed the Hans-Vogt Film Prize from the city of Rehau, endowed with 5000 Euros. This prize is award­ed to film­mak­ers whose works are dis­tin­guished by their qual­i­ty and sig­nif­i­cance and that use film music in a unique way.

We are thrilled and warm­ly con­grat­u­late each of them!

This year the Wim Wen­ders Schol­ar­ship was award­ed for the 7th time by the Film- und Medi­en­s­tiftung NRW and the Düs­sel­dorf Wim Wen­ders Foun­da­tion. The renowned schol­ar­ship assists young film­mak­ers who endeav­our to tell their sto­ries in new ways and to devel­op their projects inde­pen­dent­ly. To this end, the schol­ar­ship hold­ers pro­vide a total of 100,000 euros. In select­ing the projects to be fund­ed, spe­cial atten­tion was paid to orig­i­nal­i­ty and to a strong visu­al con­cept.
Six projects were select­ed for fund­ing from a total of 33 appli­ca­tions. Among the suc­cess­ful appli­cants is a project by two alum­ni of the DFFB: Eliza Petko­va and Con­stanze Schmitt received a schol­ar­ship of 10,000 euros for their film STILLE BEOBACHTER. What is spe­cial about this project is that it tells the sto­ry of ani­mals observ­ing peo­ple, and not the oth­er way around, which gives us an insight into how ani­mals view us humans.
The awardees will stay in con­tact with each oth­er and, above all, with the jury and Wim Wen­ders through reg­u­lar col­lo­quia to com­mu­ni­cate their project’s progress and to sup­port one anoth­er in this devel­op­ment phase.
Wim Wen­ders con­cludes by explain­ing the film indus­try and the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion: “I’m delight­ed that we are using the schol­ar­ship to give these film­mak­ers the time and sup­port they need to devel­op their projects. Espe­cial­ly giv­en these dif­fi­cult times for cin­e­ma, a medi­um so close­ly linked to social inter­ac­tion. More than ever, cin­e­ma needs new forms and cer­tain­ly oth­er forms of pre­sen­ta­tion to strength­en the medium’s col­lec­tive expe­ri­ence.”
Our warmest con­grat­u­la­tions go to Eliza and Constanze—we are very excit­ed about this oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op your project!

It is with a heavy heart that the DFFB says good­bye to its alum­nus and for­mer lec­tur­er David Sla­ma. The film­mak­er died on Octo­ber 15 at the age of 74.

After study­ing with Michael Ball­haus and Peter Stein at the DFFB in Berlin, David Sla­ma worked as a cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er on more than 80 fea­ture and tele­vi­sion films, col­lab­o­rat­ing with Luc Bondy, Rein­hard Hauff, Harun Faroc­ki, and Mar­tin Scors­ese, among oth­ers. He is right­ly con­sid­ered one of the most impor­tant cin­e­matog­ra­phers in Ger­man-lan­guage film.

Par­al­lel to his artis­tic work, David Sla­ma taught at the DFFB, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences Dort­mund, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences Han­nover. In 2010, he was appoint­ed cin­e­matog­ra­phy pro­fes­sor at IFS Cologne. He was a mem­ber of the Ger­man Film Acad­e­my.

His enthu­si­asm for film­mak­ing and his great com­mit­ment to young film­mak­ers will be sore­ly missed.