29/01/2009

The nominations for the 2009 Swiss Film Awards – whose ceremony will be held on March 7 in Lucerne – were announced at the close of the Solothurn Film Festival. Fifteen features, ten shorts, three screenplays, nine actors and three film scores will vie for the Quartz trophy in nine different categories.

Five films will compete for the title of Best Feature: Christoph Schaub’s Happy New Year [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (a clear favourite with four nominations), Vincent Pluss’ The Noise in My Head [+see also:
trailer
interview: Céline Bolomey
film profile], Oliver Paulus’ Tandoori Love [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Lionel Baier’s Another Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lionel Baier
film profile] and Ursula Meier’s Home [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kacey Mottet Klein
interview: Thierry Spicher
interview: Ursula Meier
film profile].

Happy New Year and Home are also contenders for the Best Screenplay Award, alongside Stefan Jäger’s Boxing Jesus.

Four of the above films are competing for Best Actor or Actress: The Noise in My Head has earned a nomination for Shooting Star Céline Bolomey (see interview), Another Man for Natacha Koutchoumov, Happy New Year for Nils Althaus, and Home for Kacey Klein Mottet.

Also vying for honours in the same category are Alexandra Prusa for Räuberinnen; Raphael Carlucci and Melanie Sauder for Zufallbringen [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Dennis Ledergerber and Ninian Green; and Dominique Jann and Joel Basman for Dominique de Rivaz’s Luftbusiness.

Luki Frieden’s Tausend Ozeane [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Ayten Mutlu Saray’s Zara have been nominated for Best Film Score alongside Happy New Year.

Shorts and animated films aside, five works will battle it out for the Best Documentary Quartz. These are Olivier Zuchuat’s Au loin des villages, Danilo Catti’s Giù le mani, Fernand Melgar’s The Fortress [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Fanny Bräuning’s No More Smoke Signals and Yves Scagliola’s The Beast Within.

(Translated from French)