British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) will honour veteran actor John Hurt with the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award at the British Academy Film Awards ceremony on February 12.

In a career spanning six decades Hurt has starred in a variety of film roles including "Midnight Express", for which he won the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Supporting Actor, The Elephant Man for which he won the Best Actor BAFTA, and recently in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" [trailer] and the Harry Potter films.

For his "outstanding performances and contribution to European film culture" John Hurt received the "Europa", the main prize of Braunschweig International Film Festival in 2009.

KINEMA-Award winner Cheyenne Carron unfortunately couldn’t make it to the award ceremony to receive the statuette for her movie NE NOUS SOUMETS PAS À LA TENTATION. So we shipped it to her. She seems to like it and wrote today:

Merci mille fois pour cette récompense!
Je vous embrasse,
Cheyenne Carron

Half of the festival has already passed! It’s time to take stock for the 25^th 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 10^th 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’!

The nominees for the filmfest's audience competition "The Heinrich" are fixed. Ten films from eight countries will compete for the prize for European debut and second films with a purse of 10.000 Euro.
The prize money, endowed by the filmfest's main sponsor Volkswagen Financial Services, is equally sharded between the director and German distributor. The winner will be announced at the award ceremony on Sunday, November 13th at the State Theatres Big Hall. The "Heinrich" is being award in the 13th year.
Four of the ten participating films are German premieres.

The Hamburg group of artists A WALL IS A SCREEN illuminates the eventful history of the Braunschweig cinema. In an unconventional tour they use short films, and go tracking for cinemas that have been closed long ago, and former sites of the filmfest, taking the audience with them.

The 25th International Film Festival Braunschweig honours French Actress Isabelle Huppert with its main prize, the European Actors Award „The Europa“. Huppert receives the award for her outstanding artistic performances and contribution to European film culture. Isabelle Huppert will be handed over the statue „The Europa“ during the award ceremony on November 13 in Braunschweig‘s State Theatre. The prize is sponsored by the festival’s main sponsor Volkswagen Financial Services AG.

„Isabelle Huppert is an icon of contemporary auteur cinema“, says festival director Volker Kufahl, „We are proud and happy to welcome this exceptional actress, who gives every role her distinctive expression.“Huppert is considered as one of the greatest actresses of world cinema. To this day she has played in more than 80 films, 16 of which were seleceted for the official competition in Cannes – a record. She is the only Frenchwoman who has won the Golden Palm of Cannes twice: 1978 for „Violette Nozière“ directed by Claude Chabrol, who she worked with in seven films, and 2001 for „The Pianist” by Michael Haneke, for which she also received the European Film Award.

Michael Brynntrup, professor for video / film at the University of Art Braunschweig, has been a regular guest at the filmfest presenting his students and their works. This year, the renowned film and video artist takes centre stage himelf. The festival’s section for former students of the University of Art’s film class is dedicated to the professor, who degreed there in 1991. Continual subjects in his body of work are questions concerning the identity of selfhood and how it is influenced through gender and sexuality. He does not shy away from taking the place of the contemplated object himself. Braunschweig film festival will present nine of his film works from 1986 to 2011.

Carsten Spicher, this year’s member of the LEO-Jury, will present music videos of the Oberhausen’s MuVi Award 2011. This accords strongly to the filmfest’s emphasis “Music & Film”. There for this year’s focus includes the neglected video clip genre. Not only popular German Bands like “Die Sterne” or “Wir sind Helden” will be shown, but also international highlights of extraordinary ingenuity.

Click here for a review of the German band "Wir sind Helden".

As one of four Carsten Spicher will join the LEO jury. He thus decides the winner of the prize for the short film with the most successful combination of image and sound, awarded with 2,000 €. Since August 2001, Spicher is working for the Short Film Festival Oberhausen. He heads the German Competition and the archive. Furthermore he is responsible for the regional film programs and recently for the distribution.

In the section "Music & Film" Fritz Lang's silent movie "Die Nibelungen" will be shown in concert. The saga in two parts about Siegfried the dragon-slayer, and his vengeful wife Kriemhild is one of the most lavish epic movies from the 1920s. The work’s stylistic unity, the innovative animation techniques and the status as a super-production conferred the movie an international reputation and a place in movie history.
The Braunschweig State Orchestra plays under the direction of Helmut Imig to the restored version of the classic film of 2010 on November 11th at Stadthalle Braunschweig.
Tickets for subscribers of the Staatstheater are now available, for non-subscribers as of October 1st.