The 23rd Braunschweig international film festival startet with a true home match: “66/67 – Fairplay war gestern”. The nordmedia-funded production on six hooligans and members of the fan club “66/67”was shot on location in Braunschweig in summer 2008. The two directors Carsten Ludwig and Jan-Christoph Glaser came to the festival with almost the entire team for the "only true premiere", as Glaser who was born in Branschweig underlined.
With a world premiere Hanna Schygulla returned to the filmfest. In 2007 she had received the festival’s “European Actors Award”. Then she has announced to invest the prize money in a camera and return to Braunschweig with her film. She kept her promise, and presented her directing debut at the sold out Universum cinema. Her first film “Alicia Bustamante” is a documentary, a portray of her Cuban friend and actress.
This year’s »EUROPEAN ACTORS AWARD« went to British actor John Hurt (69), who was honoured for extraordinary acting career and merits for European cinema. Jens Meurer, Hurt’s friend and producer of his film "Shooting dogs" held a very personal and humourous laudation.
The audience award »THE HEINRICH« for European debut and second films went to Italy. “The Clown” by director Marco Pontecorvo (Beta Film) took home the prize money of 10 000 Euro. On behalf of the director actress Evita Ciri accepted the prize statue. Half of the sum goes to a German distributor who decides to bring the film to the screens.
The young jury of the French-German Youth Award »KINEMA« voted for the brilliant disturbing Danish-French film “Sois Sage” by Juliette Garcias (Trust Nordisk). The jury lauded the "artistically sophisticated film" for its sensative approach of a difficult topic.
The jury of the short film music award »THE LEO«, worth 2 000 Euro, with film critic Andrea Dittgen, composer Christine Aufderhaar and journalist Sven Ahnert favoured “Mama” by director Géza M. Toth from Hungary.
As part of the ”music and film” programme, Braunschweig’s state orchestra presented a film concert of an early Edgar Wallace flick “The Squeaker” (1931) with a new score by composer Florian C. Reithner.
As a support programme the participants of the festival’s first film music work shop “Create your own score!“ presented their score to Axel Brötje’s short film “Kiss of the Scorpion”. In only four days the 20 teenagers aged 15-17 had composed, rehearsed and performed a complete new sound track instructed by composer Stephan von Bothmer.
The “Traffic Quintet” from Paris performed a selection of miniatures from classics of the Nouvelle-Vague arranged by French composer Alexandre Desplat. The Frenchman was honoured with a retrospective that combined works from the years 1996 like „Un héro très discret“ (director: Jacques Audiard) to 2009 like his latest film „L’armée du crime“ (director: Robert Guédiguian).
Current Latin-American cinema stood in the focus of the “Vistas Latinas” programme, which also featured the 50th anniversary of the Cuban film institute ICAIC. Seven current productions, several premieres, gave an insight into how Latin-American directors view the world and themselves and impressed with new aethetic forms of expression. The programme combined so divers productions as the spiritual docu drama „El regalo de la Pachamama“ („The Gift of Pachamama“) by Toshifumi Matsushita from Bolivia, the highly decorated Peruvian-Argentinian coproduction „Dioses“ („Gods“) by Josué Méndez or „Sin Nombre“ by Cary Joji Fukunaga from Mexico. Direector Rafael Lara presented his „La Milagrosa“ („The Miraculous“), a tough thriller dealing with a kidnapping in the Columbian Civil War.
A special programme was devoted to the film institut ICAIC. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the filmfest and director Claudia von Alemann had put together a selection of current Cuban short and feature films . In the screening entitled „Cuba en cortos“, the two Cuban directors Susana Barriga and Sandra Gómez explained their short films „Patria“ and „El futuro es hoy“.
The „New German Film“ section featured Max Riemelt and his director Frieder Wittich with their new film „13 Semester“ vor. Florian Eichinger camme to Braunschweig with his „Bergfest“. The festival films that attracted the largest numbers of visitors were Fatih Akin’s „Soul Kitchen“, Woody Allen’s „Whatever works“ and the episode movie „New York, I love you“.
On six days the filmfest screened 165 long and short films. The screenings, film concerts, work shops and the photo exhibtion attracted a total of 22.000 visitors.
01.02.2010