Coveted television award: Nominations for Grimme Awards – Criticism of the feature film

The renowned Grimme Institute misses bold, courageous and unusually cast feature films on German television. When nominating contributions for this year’s Grimme Prize, the possible quota in the area of ​​fiction was once again not exhausted. “The number of television films nominated in this category has reached a historic low,” explained the head of the Grimme Prize, Lucia Eskes, on Thursday.

According to a statement, 64 productions and individual performances were nominated for the awards from more than 700 submissions. There are four categories: information & culture, fiction, entertainment and children & youth. The juries will start making the final selection next week. The winners of up to 16 Grimme Prizes and two additional prizes will be announced on March 6th.

Lack of ideas for the classic 90 minutes?

According to a spokesman, the institute in Marl, North Rhine-Westphalia, has been observing problems with classic 90-minute feature films for some time – unlike the often elaborately produced series. The courage to tell stories differently and in new ways, the joy of visual experimentation and unusual and surprising casts can be found in many serial formats, said Eskes.

As an example of a successful series production, “Appropriately Angry” (RTL/RTL+) was nominated for a Grimme Prize. In the series, the maid Amelie fights sex offenders with superpowers. Also nominated are the ARD Degeto series “Black Fruits” about the reality of life for black and queer people in Hamburg and the ZDFneo original series “Push” about the occasionally dramatic everyday life in obstetrics.

Controversial topics such as escape and sexual violence

Many of the nominated contributions reflected controversial topics such as flight and migration, the rise of right-wing extremism, climate change and sexual violence, praised the new head of the institute, Çiğdem Uzunoğlu, who has been in office since the beginning of the year.

Nominated examples also include productions such as “Trapped in Anger – Growing Up in the West Bank” (ZDF/ARTE) about life in a refugee camp and a settlement near Nablus or “Abandoned in the Desert: Europe’s Deadly Refugee Policy” (BR/DW/NDR) about the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. The reporters Isabell Beer and Isabel Ströh were also nominated for their digital research on films about pedocriminals and rapists (NDR/funk).

58 of 64 nominations went to public broadcasters

“The public broadcasters can look forward to a total of 58 nominations this year, six nominations go to private or streaming providers,” explained the Grimme boss.

The Middle East correspondent Golineh Atai, the meteorologist Özden Terli for his urgent communication of the extent of the climate catastrophe and the editorial team of the ZDF magazine “Frontal” for their persistent investigative reporting on energy and climate policy issues were nominated for special journalistic achievements.