12/07/2005

The big winner of the 'Filmkunstpreise', the award granted at the end of the Ludwigshafen Film Festival, went to Netto, by Robert Thalheim. This film, which received 50 000 euros, was warmly complimented by the jury (Leslie Malton, Nino Hoger, Peter W. Janssen, Ralph Schwingel, and Peter Lilienthal) for its overall beauty, the clever inverted situation at its core, and the unsentimental simplicity of the images. Netto is 'a wonderful film' which 'made us happy,' said the jury.
Netto focuses on the efforts of a son (Sebastian Butz, seen in The Edukators and Kombat 16) to redeem his lame unemployed alcoholic father (Milan Peschel). The inverted authority —since the child is the one who has to teach the adult parent how to behave— allows the director to put his characters into odd or absurd situations with great wit. Thalheim, for whom this film is his final graduation work (for the Babelsberg Film School) deal with social reality, a theme young German directors have imported from TV fiction. The jury of Ludwigshafen also praised the pertinent use of Peter Tschernig's songs (he is the Johnny Cash of the East) perfectly in tune with the narrative. Netto, produced by Matthias Miegel and the "Konrad Wolf" Film School, is distributed by Stardust Filmverleih.

Remote Area (2Pilots Filmproduction), a documentary in which Alexandra Sell shows the life of a German province by following four characters, won a special distinction from the jury. The audience elected two favourites ex-aequo: Die Blaue Grenze, a Discofilm production directed by Till Franzen and interpreted, notably, by Hanna Schygulla (who worked with Fassbinder, Godard, Agnès Varda, Marco Ferreri, Carlos Saura, Ettore Scola, Wim Wenders...) who, for that matter, received a prize for her entire career at the beginning of the festival, and Slight changes in temperature and mind (SommerHundeSöhne), the story of an unexpected friendship filmed by Cyril Tuschi and produced by Friends Production and LaLa Films!. Zauberland Filmverleih will release the film on the 8th of September 2005.

(Translated from French)