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AWARDS Germany

European winners at Munich and Mannheim-Heidelberg

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At this year’s Munich International Student Film Festival (November 14-20), the VFF Young Talent Award (worth €7,500) went to Polish short film For Madmen Only by Pawel Maslona, from Katowice Film School.

It’s the second year in a row that Polish cinema, which is "polished and written in a unique way" has claimed the main prize, as pointed out by festival director Andreas Ströhl – last year it went to Magnus von Horn’s Echo. The jury, headed by Georgian director Dito Tsintsadze (The Man from the Embassy), praised the precise directorial style and the actors’ subtle performance in Maslona’s caustic tragicomedy in which a couple with a well-ordered life go through hell on earth.

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At the 59th Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival (November 11-21), most of the main prizes went to non-European films. However, two Scandinavian debut features scooped honours: Lisa Langseth’s Swedish film Pure [+see also:
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earned actress Alicia Vikander a Special Mention from the international jury "for her extraordinary performance in a very powerful film"; while Danish director Kaspar Munk’s Hold Me Tight [+see also:
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won the Audience Award and the Ecumenical Jury Prize for its subtle, intense and highly artistic depiction of the daily life of four high-school students, with its pressures and solitude, in a way that encourages social debate.

Langseth’s film was also among the three titles recommended by the exhibitors’ jury, along with Jaap van Heusden’s Dutch film Win/Win [+see also:
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and Spanish director Juana Macías’s Plans for Tomorrow [+see also:
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(Translated from French)

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