23/01/2009

This year, two German films have been nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

The first is Uli Edel’s The Baader Meinhof Complex [+see also:
trailer
film profile], just off its Golden Globe nomination. Produced by Bernd Eichinger of Constantin Film, the film has already garnered over 2.5 million admissions domestically and has been sold to all important territories worldwide. This marks the second time a Constantin Film production has been nominated in the category, following 2005’s Downfall [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bernd Eichinger
interview: Joachim Fest
interview: Oliver Hirschbiegel
film profile].

Also competing in the Best Foreign Language Film category is the German co-production and animated documentary Waltz with Bashir [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Ari Folman, recently awarded a Golden Globe in Israel. Sony Pictures Classics released the film in the US on December.

Bashir is the second German co-production from the Berlin-based Razor Film to receive an Oscar nomination, following Hany Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2006.

Reto Caffi’s On the Line and Toyland by Jochen Alexander Freydank picked up nominations for Best Short Film – Live Action.

Stephen Daldry’s US/German title The Reader [+see also:
trailer
film profile], co-produced by Germany’s Neunte Babelsberg Film/Potsdam and starring German Shooting Star David Kross, received nominations in five categories, including Best Director and Best Film.

In the category Best Documentary, Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World has also been nominated. The last German film to win a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar was The Lives of Others [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Florian Henckel von Donners…
interview: Ulrich Muehe
film profile] in 2007.

The 81st Academy Awards will be held in the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on February 22.