Winners announced at the Diagonale

by Bénédicte Prot

27/03/2012 - The 15th Diagonale Film Festival in Graz, held from March 20 to 25 (read more) has awarded StilL Life by Sebastian Meise Best Austrian Film. The jury for best fiction feature film, made up of Austrian director Händl Klaus, German journalist Sven von Reden, and director of the Basel Film Festival Nicole Reinhard, chose to honour the mesured calm with which Meise describes the long-ignored cracks in a family whose father is suddenly suspected of incest and paedophilia. This first feature film, also awarded Best Costume Design and Best Cinematography (Gerald Kerkletz received the award for both Still Life and Michael), received €21,000 along with the first prize.

The same amount was given to the year’s Best Austrian Documentary, Richtung Nowa Huta by Dariusz Kowalski, the portrait of an industrial town near Krakow abandoned after communism.

The Town of Graz’s Innovation Award of €10,500 went to Josef Dabernig for the experimental film Hypercrisis, about art, Sovietic heritage, and pickled vegetables. The audience voted for the documentary Griffen – Auf den Spuren von Peter Handke by Bernd Liepold-Mosser, the portrait of an artist who reveals the Austrian soul to the world. The young jury for Best First Film chose animation short Der Besuch by Conrad Tambour.

The Acting Grand Prix went to Johannes Silberschneider, while Best Actress and Best Actor for the year were respectively awarded to Christine Ostermayer for Anfang 80 and Michael Fuith for his performance in Michael [trailer] by Markus Schleinzer, a film selected for Cannes 2011. The film was also awarded Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Production Design.

With Michael , Schleinzer also won the Thomas Pluch Script Prize (€11,000), whose special mentions went out to screenwriters Thomas Reider and Sebastian Meise for Still Life and Stefanie Franz for Papa. In other parallel awards, production company epo-film won the Award for Innovation in Production for Atmen [trailer] by Karl Markovics, a film awarded in Cannes last year.

(Translated from French)