At the close of what was its 25th edition, the Munich Film Festival (June 22-30) awarded its €30,000 Young German Cinema Prize for Best Film to Mirage, in which Simon Groß depicts the strange and distrustful relationship that develops between a couple on holiday in the Moroccan desert (Marie Zielcke and Matthias Schweighöfer) and a mysterious stranger (Jean-Hugues Anglade).
The film opens on German screens on August 16, distributed by Stardust.

Best Screenplay (worth €10,000) went to Jan Bonny and Christina Ebelt for Countertparts [trailer, making of], directed by Bonny. The film –presented at this year’s Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival (see article) – tells of the daily violence between an apparently respectable couple.

Best Actor went to Alexander Fehling, who starred in another Cannes title (Un Certain Regard, see article) Robert Thalheim’s And Along Come Tourists [trailer]., while this year’s Best Actress Award went to Valerie Koch for her role in Felix Randau’s thriller The Calling Game.

The Bernhard Wicki Award was presented to Marco Kreuzpaintner’s Trade, the story of a young Mexican looking for his sister, kidnapped by a prostitution network, who is helped by a Texan police officer played by Kevin Kline, who won the CineMerit Award for his role.