02/07/2008

The 26th Munich Film Festival (June 20-28) announced its prize-winners this weekend.

The winner of the new Arri-Zeiss Award for Best Foreign Film (created this year and worth €50,000) went to Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Domenico Procacci
interview: Jean Labadie
interview: Matteo Garrone
film profile] (which outshone Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nicola Giuliano
interview: Paolo Sorrentino
interview: Philippe Desandre
film profile], which was also among the three finalists). The jury were impressed by this "frightening portrait of a contemporary community…this superbly enacted and harshly realistic depiction...that captures our imagination as it affects our view of the everyday world ".

The traditional Bernhard Wicki Award (worth €10,000) – which honours works that inspire tolerance and humanism – went to French/Spanish/German co-production The Anarchist’s Wife [+see also:
trailer
film profile], by Marie Noëlle and Peter Sehr. The film recounts the love story of a young woman and is set between 1937 and 1950, during the Spanish Civil War.

The jury deemed that this "film against the absurdity of war" is "a warning for all" and could also inspire a feeling of "political responsibility" in the young generation of Europeans. The film is set to be released in Germany early next year.

The CineVision Award – which honours an innovative, non-German debut or second film in the festival selection – went to Valeria Gaia Germanica’s Russian title Everybody Dies But Me.

The Audience Award was presented to I Have to Sleep, My Angel, the second directorial feature by Croatian filmmaker Dejan Acimovic (who recently appeared in Esma’s Secret [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Barbara Albert
interview: Jasmila Zbanic
film profile]). The film looks back at 70 years of conflict in Yugoslavia.

The Young German Cinema Awards – presented by a jury that included Marcus H. Rosenmüller and Christian Becker – went to young director Timo Müller for Morscholz (which received a generous €40,000); screenwriter Heiko Martens for Narrenspiel (€20,000); and actors Markus Tomczyk (Braams) and Susanne Wolff (The Stranger in Me [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]).

Other prize-winners at Munich include Mischa Kamp’s Where is Winky’s Horse?, which scooped the Young Audience Award. Laurent Cantet’s Palme d’Or-winning French film The Class [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carole Scotta
interview: Laurent Cantet
film profile] – which opened the festival – received the One Future Award, which is given to works that show that the world has a common future.

Dutch director Michael Verhoeven also picked up a Career Achievement Award.

(Translated from French)