Munich (ots) – On Tuesday, June 25, 2024, the 23rd award ceremony of the German Film Peace Prize – The Bridge will take place in Munich. The Bernhard Wicki Memorial Fund has been honoring outstanding filmmakers since 2002. The film prize is awarded to artistically valuable films with a humanistic, socio-political dimension. Around 70 symbolic bridge pillars have since been awarded to filmmakers from all over the world. On the evening of June 25, other outstanding films and filmmakers will receive this unique award.
- Director Jonathan Glazer receives the international directing award for the film THE ZONE OF INTEREST
- Lead actor Christian Friedel is awarded the Actor Award for his role in THE ZONE OF INTEREST
- This year’s national award winner is director Julia von Heinz with her film TREASURE – FAMILY IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY
- Broadcast with a 90-minute compilation of the event on Saturday, June 29th at 11:25 p.m. on 3sat and on Tuesday, July 2nd at 11:45 p.m. on BR Fernsehen
The International Peace Prize of German Film – The Bridge, endowed with 7,500 euros, goes to the British director Jonathan Glazer for his film THE ZONE OF INTEREST In his new film, the Briton sheds light on the life of Rudolf and Hedwig Höss, the camp commander of Auschwitz, and his family, in their picture-book home right next to the extermination camp. The jury explained: “In the modern, rustic, pretty house with many servants and a spacious garden, bordered by the concentration camp wall with barbed wire, you get a glimpse into the private life of mass murder and thus into the constitution of a bourgeoisie that was capable of anything, and thus the film and the viewer look – well – at us, at themselves. This film will not be repressed, let alone forgotten. It is therefore a cinematic, aesthetic and conceptual masterpiece in the spirit of “never again” and thus also a highly topical call to “nip it in the bud”. The film, distributed by Leonine Distribution, is currently available as video on demand and on DVD / Blu-ray.
Lead actor Christian Friedel was awarded the best actor prize, worth 5,000 euros, for his portrayal of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß. “Just as the question of how to portray the incomprehensible crime of the Holocaust arises in general, the question of how to portray a person who – like hardly anyone else – was closer to the scene of the murder is even more concrete. Christian Friedel plays Rudolf Höß and solves the problem of portrayal in a shocking way: through restraint instead of expressive bestiality, through normality instead of psychotic sadism,” the jury wrote about Friedel.
Director Julia von Heinz will be in Munich on 25 June for her film TREASURE – FAMILY IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY was awarded the German Film National Peace Prize – The Bridge, which is also endowed with 7,500 euros. The screenplay, written by Julia von Heinz and John Quester, is based on the novel “Too Many Men” by Lily Brett. The story is told of Ruth Rothwax, daughter of two Auschwitz survivors. She decides to travel to Poland with her father to search for his Jewish roots. Director Julia von Heinz sends the unlikely father-daughter duo, played by Lena Dunham and Stephen Frey, on a moving journey into the past and into the tension between the search for meaning and repression. “With Treasure – Family is a Foreign Country, Julia von Heinz has succeeded in making a moving and, despite the dark subject matter, entertaining film that reminds us that there is no one correct way to deal with the past, but that it is without question important never to forget the past,” the jury explains. The film, starring Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham, will be released in German cinemas on September 12, 2024, distributed by Alamode Film.
For the shocking documentation 20 TAKE IN MARIUPOL Journalist Mstyslav Chernov receives the special prize, which is endowed with 5,000 euros. The documentary by Pulitzer Prize winner Mstyslav Chernov, Michelle Mizner and Raney Aronson-Rath documents the experiences of AP journalists during around three weeks in the Ukrainian port city when it was besieged by Russian forces in early 2022: crucial images of war, the catastrophic suffering of the civilian population, mass graves and the bombing of a maternity clinic. “A powerful, truthful and cruel film. This documentary is difficult to bear, but necessary,” writes the Peace Prize jury in its statement. The film can be seen as video on demand on various streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime, Apple TV or YouTube.
This year’s award ceremony will take place with around 450 invited guests in the Cuvilliés Theater in Munich. The annual event is financed and supported by the Bavarian State Government and the Film Fernseh Fonds Bayern, as well as the state capital of Munich and is realized in close partnership with the BR.
This year, the gala will once again be hosted by presenter Sandra Rieß and actor Thomas Heinze. The musical framework will be provided by musicians from the Bavarian Philharmonic and Christian Friedel with his band Woods of Birnam.
A 90-minute compilation of the event will be shown on Saturday, June 29th at 11:25 p.m. on 3sat and on Tuesday, July 2nd at 11:45 p.m. on BR Fernsehen – and subsequently in the ARD Mediathek.
About the Bernhard Wicki Memorial Fund
The Bernhard Wicki Memorial Fund, Munich, was founded in 2001 by Elisabeth Wicki-Endriss, the widow of Bernhard Wicki, who died in 2000. The purpose of the Bernhard Wicki Memorial Fund is to promote education, tolerance and international understanding based on the cinematic legacy of Bernhard Wicki and its content. In particular, the promotion of art and culture in the field of socially committed films that promote tolerance and human rights. At the same time, the Bernhard Wicki Memorial Fund is working to use the medium of film to give young people guidance for their identity formation and decision against all violence and persecution of people of other intellectual backgrounds. To this end, it launched the “The Bridge Youth Cinema Days” for the first time in 2003 under the patronage of State Secretary Karl Freller in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Cultural Department of the City of Munich.
About the German Film Peace Prize – The Bridge
The German Film Peace Prize has been organized since 2002 by the Bernhard Wicki Memorial Fund in cooperation with the Bavarian State Government and the leading organization of the film industry SPIO. In addition to the support of the Free State of Bavaria, the prize is also regularly supported financially and materially by the state capital of Munich, the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation, the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, and other partners and sponsors.
www.bernhardwicki.de
Inquiries & Contact:
For an accreditation request for the award ceremony on June 25th in Munich – further information or images please contact:
Katrin Strauch
Deputy Chairman Bernhard Wicki Memorial Fund eV
Email katrin.strauch@bernhardwickigedaechtnisfonds.de
Call +49 176 21173100
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