Month: January 2020

JIYAN wins the prize of the Ecu­meni­cal Jury at the 41st Film­fes­ti­val Max Ophüls Preis

Uncategorized,

At the award cer­e­mo­ny of this year’s Film­fes­ti­val Max Ophüls Preis, JIYAN (director/​screenwriter: Sühey­la Schwenk, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Flo­ri­an Wurz­er, pro­duc­er: Sara Fazi­lat, Rox­ana Richters) won the Ecu­meni­cal Jury Prize endowed with a €2500 award.

The rea­sons:

“This haunt­ing, inti­mate cham­ber play is strength­ened by the inter­play of the cam­era and set design. The film explores the way in which prej­u­dices with­in the fam­i­ly struc­ture and degrad­ing social real­i­ties are han­dled. It is pre­cise­ly the filmmaker’s refusal to use an unnec­es­sar­i­ly large dra­mat­ic arc and to favour a focus on the dai­ly con­cerns and hard­ships with­in the pri­vate sphere that bring forth the pro­tag­o­nists’ human­i­ty.

Clev­er­ly writ­ten, the film details the life of a young Syrian/​Kurdish fam­i­ly and their rel­a­tives in Ger­many.

At the end, the ques­tion asked is: What is a human life worth?”

 

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the whole team!

 

Cred­it: ffmop /​ Oliv­er Diet­ze

DFFB Films at the 70th Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val

Journal,

This anniver­sary edi­tion of the Berli­nale will take place from 20.2.–1.3.2020, and the DFFB will be rep­re­sent­ed at the fes­ti­val by two films:

The fea­ture film A FISH SWIMMING UPSIDE DOWN (director/​screenwriter: Eliza Petko­va; cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Con­stanze Schmitt; pro­duc­er: Kon­stan­tin Kann) will be screened in the 21st Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino, and the doc­u­men­tary film BLUE EYES AND COLORFUL MY DRESS from Poli­na Gumiela will be screened in the 43rd Gen­er­a­tion.

Both films are grad­u­a­tion films and will be cel­e­brat­ing their world pre­mieres at the Berli­nale.

BLUE EYES AND COLORFUL MY DRESS is nom­i­nat­ed twice: for the Crys­tal Bear for the Best Film and for the Grand Prix of the Gen­er­a­tion Kplus Inter­na­tion­al Jury for the Best Film.

A FISH SWIMMING UPSIDE DOWN is nom­i­nat­ed for the Com­pass Per­spec­tive Award and the Hein­er Carow Award from the DEFA foun­da­tion.

Morevo­er, the first fea­ture NAKED ANIMALS from our alum­na Melanie Waelde will be screened in the new­ly cre­at­ed Encoun­ters sec­tion. The fea­ture film is pro­duced by CZAR Film, and the screen­play was the writer and director’s DFFB grad­u­a­tion project.

We are keep­ing our fin­gers crossed for all films and are look­ing for­ward to an excit­ing fes­ti­val!