White Ribbon, Storm favourites for German Critics’ Awards 2009

by Bénédicte Prot

13/01/2010 - The German Critics’ Awards, the only prizes in the country awarded exclusively by representatives of the profession (the 300 members of the German Critics’ Federation), will be presented at the Berlinale in nine categories, judged solely on artistic, and not on economic or political, grounds.

This year’s nominations are dominated by two titles: Michael Haneke’s superb The White Ribbon [trailer, film focus], which scooped honours at Cannes and the EFA Awards; and Hans-Christian Schmid’s outstanding film Storm [trailer, film focus](European Parliament LUX Prize 2009 competition), in which the director pulls off the feat of combining a personal moral dilemma (heightened by excellent performances by Kerry Fox and Anamaria Marinca) with an accurate, nuanced portrayal of the complicated functioning of the International Criminal Tribunal. These films have each been nominated in four categories.

Next in line, with three nominations, is Maren Ade’s Everyone Else [trailer, film focus], which won an award at last year’s Berlinale.

Meanwhile, there are two nominations for Marcus H. Rosenmüller’s delightful La Peinture Nacrée [trailer] (“Mother-of-Pearl Paint”); Sandra Nettelbeck’s Helen [trailer]; Florian Gallenberger’s remarkable John Rabe; Ali Samadi Ahadi’s Salami Aleikum [trailer] [trailer]; Alexander Adolph’s I’ve Never Been Happier [trailer] and Fatih Akin’s joyful Soul Kitchen [trailer].

The latter film is, however, only competing in the technical categories of Best Cinematography and Best Editing, while the single nomination for Andreas Dresen’s Whisky With Vodka [trailer, film focus] and for Alain Gsponer’s Lila, Lila [trailer], is in the Best Film category.

(Translated from French)