German Film Prize: Awards for Kammerer and Jelinek

Actress Leonie Benesch plays a teacher who wants to solve a series of thefts at her school with secret camera recordings. The Viennese Felix Kammerer (“Nothing New in the West”) received a Lola as the best leading actor.

“The Teacher’s Room” won a total of five awards. For example, Benesch was honored as best leading actress, Çatak for best director. In the past, the filmmaker has shot “The spoken word counts” about a marriage of convenience.

The favorite anti-war drama “Nothing New in the West” won the most awards with nine awards, including the Lola in silver. The Netflix production by director Edward Berger about the First World War is based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970).

The film had already won four Oscars in the US in March. In Berlin he was honored on Friday evening for music, camera work and sound design. The two actor awards also went to the film. In addition to Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch was also honored with a Lola for best supporting actor. The bronze Lola went to the thriller “Holy Spider” about a woman murderer in Iran.

Award for documentary film to Jelinek

The award for the documentary went to “Elfriede Jelinek – Letting the language off the leash”. “Mission Ulja Funk” was best children’s film. “The School of Magical Animals 2” received an award for the best-attended film. Actress Jördis Triebel was honored as best supporting actress for her role in “In a country that no longer exists”.

Director Volker Schlöndorff (“The Tin Drum”) was honored with the Academy’s honorary award for outstanding services to German film. Hollywood star John Malkovich and other filmmakers paid tribute to his work via video.

The German Film Prize is one of the most important awards in the industry. The nominations and awards are endowed with a total of around three million euros for new projects. The money comes from the house of Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens). Around 1,600 guests were invited to the award ceremony in the theater on Potsdamer Platz. The evening was moderated by Jasmin Shakeri.

At the beginning, Roth called for an open discussion of abuses in the industry. “We’re also here to clearly identify problems: relationships of dependency, abuse of power, physical assaults, sexualised violence on the set.” Anyone who openly criticizes grievances, “who demands that they be stopped and is ostracized as a polluter” – can count on her support.

It needs an honest and open discussion. It must be possible to talk about what is going wrong and what can be improved, about what structures need to be changed so that a film set is a place where films are made in a good, creative and constructive working atmosphere. “We cannot and do not want to tolerate a climate of fear,” said Roth. What stands in the way, they can change together.