For the first time, Alexan­der Nanau, DFFB alum­nus and suc­cess­ful doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er, has sub­mit­ted a doc­u­men­tary film on behalf of his home­land Roma­nia to com­pete for the Oscar for Best Inter­na­tion­al Film.

In his project COLLECTIVE (direc­tor: Alexan­der Nanau, screen­writer: Alexan­der Nanau and Antoane­ta Opris, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Alexan­der Nanau, pro­duc­er: Han­ka Kastelico­va, Bernard Michaux, Alexan­der Nanau, Bian­ca Oana), which had its world pre­miere at the Venice Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val in 2019, he fol­lows a group of inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ists from the Roman­ian news­pa­per “Gaze­ta Spor­turilor” as they uncov­er a web of cor­rup­tion in the health­care sec­tor across the board.

In 2020, the doc­u­men­tary, co-pro­duced with MDR, Lux­em­bourg’s Sam­sa Film, and HBO Europe, was award­ed the Euro­pean Film Award for Best Doc­u­men­tary.  His last film project, LUMEA VAZUTA DE ION B (THE WORLD ACCORDING TO ION B), is the recip­i­ent of an Emmy.

On Feb­ru­ary 9, the pre­s­e­lec­tion of the Oscars—the short­list of 10 films—for the Best Inter­na­tion­al Film will be announced. We’re keep­ing our fin­gers crossed for you, dear Alexan­der!

And all those who are now curi­ous about the doc­u­men­tary can watch it through the ARD-Mediathek.

Pho­to Copy­right: Dog­woof Ltd.

Yes­ter­day evening, the Ger­man Film Crit­ics Asso­ci­a­tion announced the 2020 award win­ners. The award-win­ning films also include pro­duc­tions by two DFFB grad­u­ates:

Melanie Waelde was pre­sent­ed with the Best First Fea­ture Award for her film NAKED ANIMALS. The jury explained its deci­sion with warm words: “Mean­while, the film itself takes off and dares itself to be a cin­e­ma that refrains from explain­ing away its char­ac­ters. The film takes an undog­mat­i­cal approach to its dra­matur­gies and gen­der images (…). The cam­era throws itself into the fray with rel­ish, want­i­ng to play along with the vio­lent hus­tle and bus­tle of a world with­out parental super­vi­sion, in which it is impor­tant nev­er to let your guard down. This debut film shows no stand­still. Rather, it cel­e­brates move­ment, flaunt­ing it by let­ting the char­ac­ters col­lide.”

With GIRAFFE, anoth­er alum­na, Anna Sofie Hart­mann, was thrilled to receive the Best Fea­ture Film Award of the year. “On all lev­els, this film, which oscil­lates between essay, doc­u­men­tary and fic­tion, is skill­ful­ly direct­ed and is con­sis­tent­ly sur­pris­ing and fresh. (…) Down to the last, fad­ing moment, Anna Sofie Hart­mann suc­ceeds in con­dens­ing Euro­pean labour mar­ket real­i­ty and myth into a whole, which could not be more sober, top­i­cal, and enchant­i­ng,” said the jury.

The Ger­man Crit­ics’ Prize is award­ed annu­al­ly by crit­ics to Ger­man film pro­duc­tions that “are not judged accord­ing to eco­nom­ic, coun­try-spe­cif­ic, or polit­i­cal cri­te­ria, but exclu­sive­ly accord­ing to artis­tic ones,” explains the VdFk.

We con­grat­u­late both teams on their awards!

Demand. The Ger­man-Dan­ish film was pro­duced by Kom­plizen Film in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Pro­file Pic­tures and rbb.

Sev­er­al DFFB stu­dents and alum­ni worked on the project, which cel­e­brat­ed its world pre­miere at the Locarno Film Fes­ti­val in 2019 and has since expe­ri­enced a suc­cess­ful film fes­ti­val tour. The team com­pris­es Jen­ny Lou Ziegel as cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er, Jonas Dorn­bach on the pro­duc­er team, Ben von Dobe­neck in pro­duc­tion man­age­ment, Daria Wich­mann in pro­duc­tion man­age­ment, as well as Bor­bála Nagy, Faraz Fes­hara­ki, Lisa Rol­ing, and Oliv­er Göbel.

The film is about “A tun­nel is to be built to con­nect Den­mark and Ger­many; the present moves towards the future, change is in the air. (…) A Dan­ish sum­mer: long days turn into blue nights. Peo­ple meet, then part ways again.”

Worth a look!

Pho­to Cred­its: GRANDFILM Dis­tri­b­u­tion

The 42nd edi­tion of the Max Ophüls Preis Film Fes­ti­val in Saar­brück­en end­ed yes­ter­day. The award cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day evening was a joy­ous one for both DFFB stu­dents and alum­ni:

DFFB stu­dent Sara Fazi­lat was award­ed the Max Ophüls Prize for Best Young Actress for her role in NICO (director/​screenwriter: Eline Gehring, cinematographer/​screenwriter: Fran­cy Fab­ritz, producer/​screenwriter: Sara Fazi­lat).

“Sara Fazi­lat is con­vinc­ing as Nico through her every breath, move­ment, thought, emo­tion. We always ful­ly believe in her char­ac­ter. When she expe­ri­ences an assault, she takes the audi­ence with her through her painful jour­ney. In her des­per­a­tion to armour her soul as a way to heal, her char­ac­ter touched us deeply. Sara Fazi­lat shares her character’s laugh­ter, hap­pi­ness, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, anger, and self-con­fi­dence  with ter­rif­ic ease,” said the jury state­ment. Con­grat­u­la­tions, dear Sara!

BORGA (direc­tor: York-Fabi­an Raabe, screen­writ­ers: York-Fabi­an Raabe and Toks Körn­er, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Tobias von dem Borne, pro­duc­er: Alexan­der Wadouh and Rox­ana Richters), in which many DFFB alum­ni par­tic­i­pat­ed, is the win­ner of the fes­ti­val with four awards! Not only did the project win Best Fea­ture Film Award, Ecu­meni­cal Jury Award, and the Audi­ence Fea­ture Film Award, asso­ciate pro­duc­er and actor Eugene Boateng was also award­ed the Max Ophüls Prize for the Most Social­ly Rel­e­vant Film for his per­for­mance.

What a fan­tas­tic fes­ti­val edi­tion! We warm­ly con­grat­u­late the win­ners and send them our best wish­es. Bra­vo!

The new year has just start­ed and the 42nd Max Ophüls Preis Film Fes­ti­val is already about to begin! In this year’s edi­tion, the films of young film­mak­ers will be screened online from Jan­u­ary 17 to Jan­u­ary 24 in the fea­ture film, doc­u­men­tary, medi­um-length film, and short film com­pe­ti­tions, as well as oth­er pro­gram series, such as the MOP Short­list.

The MOP in Saar­brück­en is the most impor­tant fes­ti­val for young Ger­man-lan­guage film and has stood for the dis­cov­ery of young tal­ent from Aus­tria, Ger­many, and Switzer­land for over 40 years.

Among these tal­ents in this year’s pro­gram are the DFFB films I WANT TO RETURN RETURN RETURN (director/​screenwriter: Elsa Rosen­gren, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Giu­lia Schel­has, pro­duc­er: Mar­gari­ta Amine­va) , NICO (director/​screenwriter: Eline Gehring, cinematographer/​screenwriter: Fran­cy Fab­ritz, producer/​screenwriter: Sara Fazi­lat), which will run in com­pe­ti­tion, and LEIB (director/​screenwriter: Mar­i­jana Ver­hoef, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Ley­la Hoppe, pro­duc­er: Ele­na Zur­buch & Elis­a­beth Köller), which will be fea­tured in the MOP short­list.

With BORGA (direc­tor: York-Fabi­an Raabe, screen­writ­ers: York-Fabi­an Raabe and Toks Körn­er, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Tobias von dem Borne, pro­duc­er: Alexan­der Wadouh and Rox­ana Richters), and DAS MASSAKER VON ANRÖCHTE (cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Jesse Mazuch) oth­er stu­dents and alum­ni of the DFFB are also rep­re­sent­ed in Saar­brück­en. We are also keep­ing our fin­gers crossed for DFFB stu­dent Sara Fazi­lat, who is nom­i­nat­ed for the Max Ophüls Best Young Actress Award.

We wish every­one good luck and a great fes­ti­val sea­son!

Pho­to Cred­it: Max Ophüls Preis Film Fes­ti­val

On Wednes­day, Novem­ber 25, 2020, at 8 pm the Gold­en Lola will be award­ed to young film­mak­ers by the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and the Media, Min­is­ter of State Prof. Moni­ka Grüt­ters, as part of the Ger­man Short Film Award. This is the most impor­tant award for short film in Ger­many.

This year, the award cer­e­mo­ny will take place online in a new set­ting: In a fes­tive, vir­tu­al award cer­e­mo­ny tak­ing place in Kino Inter­na­tion­al Berlin, the award win­ners will be hon­oured for their out­stand­ing achieve­ments in the pro­duc­tion of short films. The event will be mod­er­at­ed by actor and DFFB grad­u­ate Tim Oliv­er Schultz and musi­cal­ly accom­pa­nied by the band Die Höch­ste Eisen­bahn and excit­ing pre­sen­ters, includ­ing Emi­ly Atef, Lars Kraume, Anni­ka Pinske, and Anna Thal­bach, who will join us through livestream. Thanks to the livestream, the audi­ence will also have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to attend the event in real time.

After the cer­e­mo­ny, in the LOLA LOUNGE, guests, award win­ners, and nom­i­nees will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to chat and toast each oth­er, while DIE HÖCHSTE EISENBAHN will pro­vide back­ground music. Press rep­re­sen­ta­tives will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­duct inter­views with the award win­ners and par­tic­i­pants by pri­or appoint­ment.

The DFFB is delight­ed that it has two pro­duc­tions that are nom­i­nat­ed IN DEN BINSEN and LAND OF GLORY. We are keep­ing our fin­gers crossed!

We look for­ward to an excit­ing and enter­tain­ing event. With your par­tic­i­pa­tion in the livestream, the Ger­man Short Film Award 2020 will be a joy­ful place to meet despite adverse cir­cum­stances. Cul­ture will tri­umph over cri­sis!

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!