Half of the festival has already passed! It’s time to take stock for the 25th International filmfest that opened last Tuesday in a sold out C1 Cinema. 600 spectators watched HABEMUS PAPAM by Nanni Moretti, which had been nominated on ly the day before for the European Movie Awards for “Best European Actor 2011” (Michel Piccoli) and “Best Production Design” (Paola Bizzari).
Especially popular with the audience this year is the competition for our audience award HEINRICH. Johannes Repka, composer of COMBAT GIRLS, Nigel O’Neill, director of BEHOLD THE LAMB and Mikaël Buch, director of LET MY PEOPLE GO! were present for Q&As for the interested audience.
The people of Braunschweig are enthusiastic about film history as well: the movies of the Schneider film collection are attracting lots of visitors to the cinema halls of Universum cinema. The presentation of the film collection with a lecture by Michael Schurig from the German Film Institute in Wiesbaden and the detailed and entertaining memories of Christian Schneider was very well received.
By taking a look at the audience figures of the Isabelle Huppert retrospective, one can tell that the audience is very much looking forward for this year’s winner of the EUROPA. Some of the screenings were sold out quickly.
Already on the first day, we were pleased to welcome famous guests: singer and songwriter Hannes Wader was visiting Universum Cinema for a Q&A after the screenin of the documentary WADER/WECKER – VATER LAND by director Rudi Gaul. In the cinema bistro he signed our guest wall right beside the signatures of Hanna Schygulla and Stellan Skarsgard. Director Elke Hauck presented her movie THE PRIZE in the Universum Cinema, too and enjoyed the nice festival atmosphere.
Our guests in the section ‘Music and Film’ are coming from New York and Bristol. The music duos FALL ON YOUR SWORD and THE INSECTS are answering questions about their work as film composers throughout the festival week – sometimes along with director Richard Kwietniowski.
Flying in from Hong Kong were producer Jacqueline Liu and the two directors Derek Kwok and Clement Cheng, who had the longest journey to Braunschweig. On Thursday night they celebrated together with the filmfest board, the juries of the KINEMA and LEO award, all our other guests - directors, film composers, festival makers from all parts of Germany – and our friends from France the 10th anniversary of the partnership program with the region of Haute Normandie. Everyone danced and partied until late at night. So we are already looking forward to the follow-up at the ultimate, official filmfest party on Saturday at the Schweinebärmannbar – or as our foreign guest say: ‘Pig-bear-man-bar’!
