Alemanic cinema sweeps Quartz nominations

by Emmanuel Cuénod

27/02/2012 - Every year, the Quartz awards have surprises in store. Announced during the Solothurn Film Festival, Swiss cinema's annual gathering at the beginning of the year, the nominees for the Swiss Film Prize Quartz 2012 are particularly Germanic. Even if the winners will not be announced until March 17 in Lucerne's impressive cultural and congress centre (KKL), 2012 already promises to be the year in which French-speaking filmmakers will be side-lined at the awards ceremony.

Even if, in the Best Film category, two Latin-language films (Summer Games [trailer, film focus] by Rolando Colla and Back to Stay [trailer, film focus] by Milagros Mummenthaler) may win against their German-speaking opponents (Der Verdingbub [trailer] by Markus Imboden, Eine wen iig, Dr Dallenbach Kari by Xavier Koller and Hell [trailer] by Tim Fehlbaum), Swiss German cinema is almost sole competitor in all the other categories. In the Best Documentary category, only Fernand Melgar represents Romance-language-speakers, with the nomination of Vol spécial [trailer]. The documentary will compete against four heavy-weights from German-speaking Switzerland, Balkan Melodie by Stefan Schwietert, The Substance [trailer] by Martin Witz, Day is Done [trailer] by Thomas Imbach, and the much talked-about Messies, ein schönes Chaos by Ulrich Grossenbacher.

Another tell-tale sign of this Germanic domination is that no Francophone film has been chosen this year in the three categories of awards for acting. Instead the three most popular comedies of last year hold the lion's share: Der Verdingbub and Eine wen iig, Dr Dallenbach Kari. At least one of them does: out of nine nominated actors, six acted in only one film.

(Translated from French)