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FETSIVAL Switzerland

Good result for German films

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Last Saturday, the international jury of the 58th Locarno Film Festival distinguished two German features: the European co-production Fratricide (Brudermord) by Yilmaz Arslan won the Silver Leopard as second best work as well as the 3d Young Jury's Prize and 3 Degrees Colder (3 Grad Kälter) by Florian Hoffmeister shared the Silver Leopard with an Iranian movie as Best First or Second film.

Fratricide, written, directed, and produced by Yilmaz Arslan (born in Turkey in 1968 where he lived for eight years before settling in Germany) is a non-conventional film by an author who openly rejects profit-driven productions, claiming to be a 'f---ing moralist' who wants to emphasize the good fortune enjoyed by European citizens and its counterpart, the 'magical attraction' rich countries hold for the rest of the world. In Fratricide, initially planned as a documentary, he uses the archaic form of tragedy to depict the fatal encounter between two pairs of brothers, one being Turkish and the other Kurdish, in a foreign country. Disappointed by the lack of support received in Germany, Arslan quickly found partners in Luxembourg (Tarantula) and France (Tarentula-France). His film, also financed by regional funds and by MEDIA, is also special in that it relies on non-professional actors.

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3 Degrees Colder, Florian Hoffmeister's debut as a writer and a director (after his studies at the German Film and TV Academy in Berlin and his nomination at the German Short Film Award 1999 for Stimmen der Welt, he worked as DoP for Hendrik Handloegten, Hannes Stoehr, and Antonia Bird), focuses on a missing person, Jan, who keeps haunting —before he returning five years later— the thoughts of his family and friends, especially his girlfriend, who keeps writing to him at night, even though she is now married to his friend. This film, produced by Blue Eyes Fiction, Sabotage Films, BR, and ARTE, owes much to its excellent actors (Bibiana Beglau, Johann von Bülow, Florian David Fitz, Katharina Schuettler), and the quality of the music, composed by Adrian Corker and Paul Conboy. International sales are handled by Media Luna.

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(Translated from French)

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