The curtain has come down and the accolades been given out at the 42nd edition of the Munich International Film Festival.
The organizers position Munich as a moment when an international focus is put on both German-speaking cinema and projects with German partners and talent. The CineCoPro Award is for German co-producers of international co-productions and is the award with the biggest financial prize, with €100,000 ($117,000) for the winner. A Poet by Colombian filmmaker Simón Mesa Soto and his German co-producer Katharina Bergfeld and Heino Deckert from ma.ja.de took the honor. It had already won the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.
The CineMasters Award for best international film went to Belgian director Alexe Poukine’s Kika, starring Manon Clavel and winning from a 14-strong field. The CineVision Award, meanwhile, is given for the best international film by an emerging director. To The West, In Zapata by David Bim took the accolade.
The CineRebels Award was given for the third time. It is for films that take risk and break the mold and was won by Soujiro Sanada’s Okamoto.
Cinema-goers also gets a say, with audience awards for both German and international movies. Zweigstelle by Julius Grimm won the former and Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value the latter. Stellan Skarsgård stars in Sentimental Value and had been given the CineMerit Award at the start of festival.
The Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) gives an award within the New German Cinema section and this year the accolade went to Sechswochenamt by Jaqueline Jansen.
Festival Artistic Directors Julia Weigl and Christoph Gröner told Deadline last week about the importance of unearthing new voices and talent at their festival. In the German Cinema New Talent category, Christina Tournatzés won Best Director for her film Karla. Yvonne Görlach was given the award for best screenplay for her screenplay for the same film.
Jacqueline Jansen was names best producer, and Magdalena Laubisch earned the award for best acting performance, for Sechswochenamt.
There is also an honor for the best film for children, the CineKindl Award, which went to Cole Webley’s Omaha.
As Munich came to a close, organizers said that attendance levels topped 91,000 across 600 screenings and events. An estimated 16,000 visitors attended the various events hosted by the film biz and 2,700 industry professionals were at the professional section of proceedings.
