By Markus Tschiedert
The German Film Prize will be awarded on Friday in the Theater am Potsdamer Platz. But important films are not included, and the interest of the TV audience in the transmission is low.
It was a triumph for Christian Petzold and a disgrace for the film academy: “Red Sky” received the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, but the drama was not good enough for the preselection of the German Film Prize.
“The Film Academy is a catastrophe anyway,” Petzold told BZ in February, “Because it does what I don’t think should be the case. It distributes the funds for cultural film funding, i.e. money from all of us, as a private association.”
The German Film Academy was founded in 2003 and has been awarding the film prize ever since. On Friday she will again lend Lola at the Theater am Potsdamer Platz.
There has always been criticism, and it has seldom been as loud as it is now. Above all, the pre-selection committee for the award, which has 19 members, is criticized. In addition to Petzold’s film, they also ignored Lars Kraume’s Berlinale contribution “The Measured Man”. “There has never been a German cinema film about the genocide of the Herero and Nama,” said Kraume to the BZ, “and if the film academy doesn’t discuss it, I don’t know what is being discussed. Actually, that’s a kind of censorship that I can’t understand.”
Director Christian Petzold won the Silver Bear at the Berlinale
Photo: Reuters
And what does the academy think about this? “The pre-selection committee has spoken out in favor of other films after detailed consultation,” says the management. Of the 117 films submitted, only six could be nominated for the “Best Film” category.
In addition to “When will it finally be like it never was”, “The Teacher’s Room”, “Rheingold”, “Sonne und Beton” and “Nothing New in the West” there is also “Holy Spider” – a European co-production, in which received German funding, but Denmark was in charge and the film was shot in Persian.
You can only speak of a German film here if you close both eyes.
A total of 2.955 million euros in tax money may be distributed by 2245 Academy members this year. In the “Best Feature Film” category, the nomination alone is enough to collect 250,000 euros for the next project. However, these are offset against the prize money for bronze (370,000 euros), silver (420,000 euros) and gold (500,000 euros).
The war drama “Nothing New in the West”, which has already won four Oscars, has the most nominations (12). However, the AG Kino – Gilde deutscher Filmkunsttheater complains that this is a streaming film (Netflix) for which the legally regulated cinema window of four months was not observed.
12 nominations for the Oscar-winner “Nothing New in the West” Photo: dpa picture radio
Ever since the Film Academy was founded 20 years ago, the three-stage election process (pre-selection, nomination, result) has been controversial. Again and again, performances like that of Nina Hoss as “Barbara” and successes like that of Til Schweiger’s “Keinohrhasen” (2008) seem to be overlooked. It also remains questionable whether tax money should be distributed by a private association.
No nomination for the Berlinale winner “Red Sky” Photo: Christian Schulz, Schramm Film
One suggestion is that in future not only filmmakers from all professional groups should judge the respective performance of their colleagues, but also cinema operators, distributors and critics. A reflection of the entire industry with people who are willing to look at the many works.
Filmmakers often don’t have the time for this. “This is currently not under discussion,” explains the academy succinctly. I prefer to keep to myself.
On Friday it’s going to be business as usual. Instead of being broadcast live from 7 p.m., the show will only be broadcast on ZDF at 11:30 p.m. Not even a million viewers have been reached in recent years. After all, there will be a live stream in the ZDF media library for the first time in 2023.