The White Ribbon sweeps up ten Lolas

by Bénédicte Prot

26/04/2010 - The German Film Awards or Lolas, organised by the German Film Academy, were presented on Friday evening at the FriedrichstadtPalast in Berlin. The major winner was Austrian master Michael Haneke’s magnificent The White Ribbon [trailer, film focus]. Its triumph crowns a brilliant career that began with the Cannes Palme d'Or, followed by other accolades including an Oscar nomination and three EFAs (including Best European Film).

The White Ribbon, a black-and-white rural thriller depicting all the different shades of evil through a portrait of the child and adult inhabitants of a small German village in 1913, received the Golden Lola for Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay (for Haneke), as well as Best Actor (Burghart Klaußner) and Best Supporting Actress (Maria-Victoria Dragus).

The film also topped the technical categories, scooping Best Cinematography (Christian Berger), Best Production Design (Christoph Kanter), Best Costume Design (Moidele Bickel), Best Make-Up (Waldemar Pokromski and Anette Keiser) and Best Sound (Guillaume Sciama and Jean-Pierre Laforce).

The Silver Lola for Best Film went to Hans-Christian Schmid’s sophisticated judicial-moral thriller Storm [trailer, film focus] (European Parliament LUX Prize 2009 competition), which also nabbed the Lolas for Best Editing (Hansjörg Weißbrich) and Best Score (The Notwist).

The Bronze Lola for Best Film was awarded to Feo Aladag’s soberly moving When We Leave [trailer, film focus], presented in February in the Panorama section at the Berlinale. This film about a Turkish-German mother also earned Best Actress for Sibel Kekilli.

Meanwhile, Marcus Vetter and Leon Geller’s documentary The Heart of Jenin and Christian Ditter’s children’s film The Crocodiles were crowned in their respective categories.

The list of prize-winners is completed by Justus von Dohnanyi, who took Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Simon Verhoeven’s popular film Men In the City [trailer].

(Translated from French)