The 35th Film Festival 2021
A touch of Hollywood in the Lion City: This year, the "Europa" was awarded to star guest Sebastian Koch for his acting achievements. The actor enriched the festival program, in addition to a retrospective of his best works, with two other special events. The 20,000 euro prize was donated by the festival's main sponsor Volkswagen Financial Services.
Sebastian Koch and the" Europe
"It is a really great pleasure and honor for me tonight here in Braunschweig to be able to award a man for you, whom I have the great honor to know for many years AND - to call my friend." Till Brönner began his laudation for the Europe Prize winner Sebastian Koch "And precisely BECAUSE we have known each other for a long time, I know that he accepts today's prize for the so-called "life's work" only and at least with a LITTLE hesitation, because he still has a lot planned - and that is exactly what I wish for all of us - here in the hall and in the world out there." he continued.
Sebastian Koch belongs to the category of world stars "FROM Germany" and a look at his almost overwhelming work and previous work at the side of the greatest of the international film business wrings from me personally again and again the utmost respect for a veritable master of his craft!
The best European films
This year, the Braunschweig audience chose 25 YEARS OF INNOCENCE. Thus, the audience award "The Heinrich" for European debut and second films went to director Jan Holoubek. The drama is based on the true story of Tomasz Komenda, who was innocently sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The jury awarded the Volkwagen Financial Services Prize for Best European Film to THE THIRD WAR by director Giovanni Aloi. The jury, which this year consisted of Uwe Tschischak (Head of Corporate Communications, VWFS), Ewa Szabłowska (art historian and moving image curator) and Daniel Kothenschulte (Film Department in the feature section of the "Frankfurter Rundschau"), announced: "A war film without war as a metaphor for fear as a means of politics: the overpresence of the military in the streets of French capitals as a response to Islamist terrorism inspired this young Italian master director to make the most original film in this competition. Framed in the story of a young soldier looking for orientation and a female officer, a universal digression on images of masculinity and power structures emerges. Almost abstractly choreographed street scenes keep the film in a hyper-realistic flow. The Volkswagen Financial Services Film Award goes to Giovanni Aloi for his masterful film THE THIRD WAR."
Volkswagen Financial Services is supporting both prizes with 10,000 euros each.
Two prizes for Giovanni Aloi
Two awards for director Giovanni Aloi: In addition to the "Volkswagen Financial Services Award", THE THIRD WAR also convinced the KINEMA jury!
"The film tells of the everyday life of an 18-year-old soldier and the members of his task force. Coming from a working class background, the young man tries to integrate into society and make a positive impact on the world. He faces the harsh reality of everyday military life and the constant tension that tests his psyche. The cleverly written screenplay keeps the audience enthralled until the very end. The gray color scheme, many close-ups, flowing camera movements and intense sound design allow us to experience the soldiers' emotional state firsthand. We were also impressed by the authentic acting, especially the precise facial expressions and gestures.Giovanni Aloi shows the soldiers' point of view, which was new to us and which allowed us to better understand the difficulties of this profession and to open our eyes to this invisible war." was the reason given by the KINEMA jury, composed of six students from France and Germany, in addition to jury president Gordian Maugg.
Queer Film Award Lower Saxony for GIRLSBOYMIX
This year, the jury of the Queer Film Award Lower Saxony, endowed with 5,000 euros, chose the Dutch short film GIRLSBOYMIX by director Lara Aerts.
"If you are a boy and a girl at the same time, you are basically nothing". Wen Long is not interested in making a decision, but just wants to be Wen Long. This insightful, playful documentary shows how absurd the imposed binary gender division really is. Clothes, toys, toilets - everything is strictly segregated. The social taboo of intersexuality leads to problems. A typical example is the fact that Wen Long's teacher considers the topic unsuitable for children, although it is a completely natural phenomenon that also occurs in the animal kingdom. So why is it strange in humans?
Braunschweig Film Award goes to Sara Fazilat
This year's Braunschweig Film Award goes to Sara Fazilat for her role in NICO. The jury, which consisted of Klaus Buhlmann, Jasmin Tabatabai and Tucké Royale, addressed the following words to the award winner:
"With a power that captivates us and with your presence, you, Sara, convince us in every phase of the often documentary-like drama in your portrayal of Nico. Truly you show the title character in all emotional facets: Starting with a carefree cheerfulness, loving caring, later in pain, urgent helplessness and a generously visible vulnerability, in her irrepressible anger for justice. The unconditional determination with which you defend your character Nico in martial arts training, even merge with her, overwhelmed us and convinced us of your full emotional and physical commitment to the role. We hope for many more films with you and only the best for you on your exciting journey."
The jury awarded an honorable mention to Dora Zygouri for her role in DIE SAAT: "In addition to an accomplished Hanno Koffler, Dora Zygouri convinces with extraordinary presence and seriousness. This is mainly due to the ambivalence and luminosity with which she portrays Doreen, endowing her with an emotional density of restraint and optimism, of curiosity and groundlessness in such a way that one watches her with fascination. It is above all the quiet tones, the small caring gestures, the searching, that make her performance so enchanting, with which she will remain in our memory for a long time."
The Green Horizons Award
The "Green Horizons Award" for the best film on sustainability went to JOURNEY TO UTOPIA this year. Particularly moving the director Erlend. E. Mo passed away recently, and his wife represented him at the award ceremony with a touching video message.
The jury, consisting of Nadja Varsani, Holger Herlitschke and Hauke Wendler, explained their choice: "The film we would like to award tonight does not offer answers to individual ecologically pressing problems, as the name of the prize - Green Horizons - might suggest. Instead, we experience - at times shockingly unembellished - the everyday life of a family setting out from the tranquil, well-off mountains of Norway to find a more environmentally sustainable future in a living community in the Danish countryside. But it proves much easier to have the right opinion than to live it out. Erlend E. Mo, the filmmaker and father portrays with incredible closeness and empathy his family in which idealism and reality, individual freedom and responsibility towards the community collide. The result is a sensitive and at the same time courageous film, which in many moments directs the gaze to the unspoken and the not so easily recognizable, thus taking us again and again into everyday situations to which we can connect. We had a long and controversial discussion about this film in the jury: Because so many decisions are made, some of them ecologically questionable. And because it offers no clear answer to the question of how and where we can find this more environmentally friendly, more sustainable future. From our point of view, this makes the documentary JOURNEY TO UTOPIA a very special one: A film that has the power to spark a discussion in the audience and talk about this family that thinks it has understood that we have to act - all of us - that we have to break away from the old familiar and look for new ways."
Heimspiel Award goes to THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN HANDS
The Heimspiel Prize was awarded this year to the director Katharina Marie Schubert.
Sabina Kaluza, Antimo Sorgente and Prof. Jutta Tränkle gave the following reasons for the choice: "The film takes us to the near past without seducing us into nostalgia. The place of action; a small provincial town in the east of the country in 1999, a time of upheaval that some survived more, others less well. The director has succeeded with an excellent cast to tell the struggle for identity, loss and change over two generations in the post-reunification. Her story is as poetic as the title. This quiet drama in desaturated images at the turn of the millennium in the former GDR is also convincing because of the clear no-frills image design, which gives the film its mood. The intensity with which the director lets her strong protagonists make their decisions, with all the consequences but without solving every mystery, deserves, in the opinion of the jury, the "Heimspiel Award" 2021."
Focus on women's power: The TILDA went to...
This year's TILDA goes to HIVE by director Blerta Basholli!
The TILDA jury, Sabine Brombach, Heike Klippel, Jakobine Motz and Anna Wollner: "Seven years after the end of the war in Kosovo, it is mainly the widows who bear the social burden of the losses. Fahrije, like many other women, lost her husband during the Krusha e Madhe massacre. Many of these bodies have never been found. To support each other in finding the missing and grieving, the women have formed an association. In search of a way out of poverty, they begin the commercial production of ajvar. In doing so, they prevail against the opposition of the traditional patriarchal environment. The high level of social control already condemns driving. Sensitively and intensively the film accompanies Fahrije and with her the women around her on their way to a growing independence. This story is based on actual events in the aftermath of the Krusha e Madhe massacre, in which over 200 people were killed and three quarters of the houses burned down. The film recalls this, but shows what is not conveyed by the news: After years of waiting and searching for the missing, the women must find ways to deal with the unchangeable. This happens undramatically, between pain, resignation, realism, also humor, so that the political can be experienced through the personal. With this feature-length debut, Kosovar Blerta Basholli presents a mature work."
