Murer - Anatomie eines Prozesses scoops Best Austrian Feature Film at the Diagonale
by Matthew Boas
- Christian Frosch's widely discussed court thriller emerged victorious in Graz, and Nikolaus Geyrhalter's The Border Fence snagged the Grand Diagonale Prize for Best Documentary
A flurry of prizes were handed out during the closing ceremony of the 2018 edition of the Diagonale (13-18 March), which took place on Saturday night at the Orpheum venue in the city of Graz. The two top accolades, the Grand Diagonale Prizes of the Province of Styria for Best Austrian Feature Film and Best Documentary, were endowed with €21,000 each, and a total of more than €184,000 in prize money was awarded during the ceremony.
The international jury for fiction features, comprising New Zealand film critic Carmen Gray, Munich International Film Festival curator Christoph Gröner and Austrian cinematographer Martin Gschlacht, was so impressed by the much-discussed Christian Frosch's Murer - Anatomie eines Prozesses [+see also:
film review
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film profile] (which also opened proceedings at the festival) that it handed it the Best Austrian Feature Film Award. The movie portrays the trial of prestigious local politician and large-scale farmer Franz Murer, the so-called “Butcher of Vilnius”, who was tried for serious war crimes against Jews.
Meanwhile, Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter's formally precise border survey The Border Fence [+see also:
film review
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film profile] was handed the Grand Diagonale Prize for Best Documentary by the jury made up of Swiss DoP Attila Boa, German producer Martina Haubrich and Spiegel Online arts editor Hannah Pilarczyk. Geyrhalter has thus received this award for the second time, after doing so in 2015 for Over the Years [+see also:
trailer
film profile].
The Prize for Innovative Cinema from the City of Graz was bestowed upon ★ by Johann Lurf. The international jury said: "In his vertiginous, colossal work, Lurf gathers together imagery from no fewer than 550 films throughout the history of cinema […] Designed to be as comprehensive and ever-expanding as possible, ★ is more in the nature of a compendium than a fixed artistic product. It is a work of exhilarating thematic complexity, open to an almost unlimited range of interpretations."
Meanwhile, the Diagonale acting prizes were this year given out as ensemble awards and went to the performers from Stefan A Lukacs’ Cops [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Katharina Mückstein’s L’Animale [+see also:
film review
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interview: Katharina Mückstein
film profile].
Here is the complete list of winners at the 2018 edition of the Diagonale:
Grand Diagonale Prize for Best Feature Film
Murer - Anatomie eines Prozesses [+see also:
film review
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Grand Diagonale Prize for Best Documentary Film
The Border Fence [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] – Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Austria)
Diagonale Prize for Best Innovative, Experimental or Animated Film
★ – Johann Lurf (Austria)
Best Short Feature Film
Entschuldigung, Ich Suche Den Tischtennisraum Und Meine Freundin – Bernhard Wenger (Austria/Germany/Sweden)
Best Short Documentary Film
Ars Moriendi oder die Kunst des Lebens – Kristina Schranz (Germany)
Best Young Talent Film
Entschuldigung, Ich Suche Den Tischtennisraum Und Meine Freundin – Bernhard Wenger
Diagonale Prize for Best Actor/Actress
Ensemble cast – Cops [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Austria)
Ensemble cast – L'Animale [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Katharina Mückstein
film profile] (Austria)
Diagonale Prize for Fiction Feature Editing
Niki Mossböck – Mademoiselle Paradis [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Barbara Albert
film profile] (Austria/Germany) and Life Guidance [+see also:
film review
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interview: Ruth Mader
film profile] (Austria)
Diagonale Prize for Documentary Feature Editing
Joana Scrinzi – Gwendolyn [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Austria) and Nicht Von Schlechten Eltern (Austria)
Diagonale Prize for Fiction Feature Cinematography
Mariel Baqueiro – Hagazussa [+see also:
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film profile] (Germany/Austria)
Diagonale Prize for Documentary Feature Cinematography
Serafin Spitzer – Gwendolyn
Diagonale Prize for Fiction Feature Sound Design
Niklas Kammertöns – Hagazussa
Diagonale Prize for Documentary Feature Sound Design
Sergey Martynyuk – Zu ebener Erde (Austria)
Diagonale Prize for Production Design
Paul Horn – Phaidros (Austria)
Diagonale Prize for Costume Design
Peter Paradies – Phaidros
Prize for Outstanding Production Services
RitzlFilm – The Best of All Worlds [+see also:
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Minifilm – Help, I Shrunk My Parents (Germany)
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