Filmfest Munich wraps with a penchant for French films

05/07/2016 - The German gathering presented up-and-coming talents from around the world

The Salesman by Asghar Farhadi, which won the ARRI/Osram Award for Best International Film

The 34th edition of the Filmfest Munich attracted a lot of talents from around the world. “We are looking back at a great festival week, with compelling movies and more guests than ever before,” stated festival director Diane Ilijne. “We are delighted that we could bring together so many filmmakers from different parts of the world. I am particularly pleased that three films that won awards are told from a female point of view.”

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The ARRI/Osram Award for Best International Film was given to the subtle family drama The Salesman [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Asghar Farhadi, in which a young couple must face up to the moral conduct of their previous tenant. “The Salesman highlights an alternative to the predominant male strategies of solving problems through vengeance,” stressed the jury. The prize worth €50,000 was handed over to producer Alexandre Mallet-Guy.

The incredible power that French filmmaker Houda Benyamina infuses in Divines [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Houda Benyamina
film profile], about the rise and fall of a 16-year-old girl in a male-dominated world, earned her the CineVision Award. When the young teenager jumps into an imaginary Ferrari and floats between concrete blocks, it quickly becomes clear that she has lofty ambitions. Another young woman is a trigger that French filmmaker Mikhaël Hers uses in This Summer Feeling [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mikhaël Hers
film profile]: her unexpected death marks the start of a story that deals with the rediscovery of joie de vivre.

Meanwhile, up-and-coming German writers, directors, actors and producers were competing with their first, second or third feature films for the Förderpreis Neues Deutsches Kino, worth €70,000. The family drama Die Hände meiner Mutter [+see also:
trailer
interview: Florian Eichinger
film profile] by Florian Eichinger, about child abuse, won the Awards for Best Director and Best Actor, for Andreas Döhler.

Jana Raschke and Igor Dovgal received the Producers’ Award for Haus ohne Dach by Soleen Yusef, in which three siblings head to Kurdistan to bury their mother in her home village, as she requested in her last will and testament. The Best Script Award went to Mareille Klein’s Dinky Sinky [+see also:
trailer
film profile], about a young woman who is trying to become pregnant without a man; her film was also awarded the FIPRESCI Prize by the international critics. The Audience Award went to the French movie All Three of Us [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Kheiron, while Auf Augenhöhe [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Evi Goldbrunner and Joachim Dollhopf was the favourite children’s movie.

Here is the complete list of award winners:

ARRI/Osram Award
The Salesman [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] – Asghar Farhadi

CineVision Award
Divines [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Houda Benyamina
film profile] – Houda Benyamina

FIPRESCI Prize
Dinky Sinky [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – Mareille Klein

Audience Awards
All Three of Us [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – Kheiron
Auf Augenhöhe [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – Evi Goldbrunner and Joachim Dollhopf