Baader Meinhof vying for Academy Award

by German Films

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 [trailer], 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 [trailer, film focus].

Also competing in the Best Foreign Language Film category is the German co-production and animated documentary Waltz with Bashir [trailer] 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 [trailer] 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 [trailer], 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 [trailer, film focus] in 2007.

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