A whole two films made by women are currently competing at the film festival in Venice – despite previous declarations that the program would be arranged in a way that both genders would equally be taken into account. Women in the film industry are underrepresented – this annoys Cornelia Rohse-Paul from Brunswick. Therefore an award for women in film should be created to show what great films are produced by women. She believed it to be possible to find 30 women willing to donate such an award.
But she did not expect the response to be this positive: To this date 60 women from Brunswick and its surroundings joined and the film award for women “Die TILDA” (based on Matilda Plantagenêt, who, as duchess, made a substantial contribution to Brunswick being a residential city) now includes a price money of 5.000 Euro.
The goal is to give more visibility to female filmmakers in all of their diversity. This diversity includes genre, ways of storytelling, the stories themselves as well as the directresses as the award aims at women of all origins, sexual orientation, skin colours etc. Another important goal of this award from women for women is to give motivation to directresses at the beginning of their career, whose work does not yet get the recognition it deserves.
The following five films are nominated: “Adam” by Maryam Touzani (Marokko/Frankreich), “Love Mobil” by Elke Margarete Lehrenkrauss (D), “Mein Ende. Dein Anfang” by Mariko Minoguch (D), “She’s Missing” by Alexandra McGuiness (Irland, UK USA), “Song Without a Name” by Meline Léon (Peru/Spanien/USA) and “The Third Wife” by Ash Mayfair (Vietnam).
“Die TILDA” is given out for the first time at the award ceremony of the 33. Braunschweig International Film Festival on Saturday 23rd of November 2019. This new award is in good company as the audience award “Der Heinrich” is given to the best European debut or second film on this evening as well as the “Europa”, the festival´s main award for extraordinary achievements in acting and notable work for European film culture, which includes a prize money of 20.000 Euro, along with seven more. Overall the festival has 10 awards with a total prize money of 58.500 Euro.
Braunschweig International Film Festival will open on November 19th with a film concert, “Das Piano”, played by the Brunswick Orchestra and conducted by Andrew Berryman. The masterly drama from 1993 received three Academy Awards and won the Palm D´Or for best picture at Cannes. Directed by a woman, the New Zealander Jane Campion, with music composed by the Brit Michael Nyman, who was a guest at the festival before.
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