23/02/2009

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honoured a German short film during yesterday’s Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles: Jochen Alexander Freydank’s Toyland.

The 14-minute winner of the Best Short Film-Live Action Academy Award is a drama about guilt, responsibility and lies – both big and small – during the Third Reich. It had already garnered much acclaim from audiences and juries alike at numerous international festivals. Freydank produced the film with his production company Mephisto Film.

With these kudos, Freydank adds his name to the Oscar winners list of German shorts. Toyland is the third short German film short to pick up the award, following Pepe Danquart’s Black Rider (1994) and Florian Gallenberger’s Quiero Ser (2001).

Since 2000, five other German productions were also nominated in this category: Marc-Andreas Bochert’s Small Change (2000), Johannes Kiefer’s Gregor’s Greatest Invention (2002), Florian Baxmeyer’s The Red Jacket (2004), Ulrike Grote’s The Runaway (2006) and this year’s other nominee, On the Line by Reto Caffi.

Britain’s Kate Winslet received a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in the Stephen Daldry The Reader [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a co-production between the UK and Germany’s Neunte Babelsberg Film/Potsdam.