Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 19, 2010. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Alongside the nominations for established HFF graduates in the feature-film category with Andreas Dresen’s “Whisky mit Wodka” and in the documentary-film category with Thomas Heise’s “Material”, there is a nomination in the feature-film debut category for WELTSTADT (director: Christian Klandt), a film made at the Film and Television University “Konrad Wolf”.
According to the university, WELTSTADT is directing student Christian Klandt’s first feature-length film. The film was made as part of a feature-film seminar at HFF in co-production with Arte, it continues. WELTSTADT’s producer is HFF production student Martin Lischke. At its premiere at the “Achtung Berlin Festival” in 2008, WELTSTADT won the main new berlin film award for Best Feature Film and the award for Best Editing. Numerous further festival screenings and awards worldwide followed, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York screened WELTSTADT as part of its 30th annual survey of new German film in April 2009. In November 2009, renowned distributor X-Verleih brought WELTSTADT to German cinemas.
Based on a true event, the feature film tells the story of a small Brandenburg town and its residents: in 2004, two young people attacked a sleeping homeless man. When they realised that he had no valuables with him, they beat him and then set him on fire. In episodic form, the stories of five people in this town are told during the 24 hours before the crime.
The film’s team and cast come largely from Berlin and Brandenburg. The lead actors Gerdy Zint, Florian Bartholomäi, Karoline Schuch, Hendrik Arnst and Justus Carrière live and work in Berlin. Producer Martin Lischke was born and raised in Berlin. Director Christian Klandt and cinematographer René Gorski grew up in the town where the crime took place. They knew the victim and the perpetrators. It is a personally told film with great attention to detail, one that observes very precisely and authentically portrays the reality of life in small German towns.
The German Film Critics’ Award is the only German film award presented exclusively by critics. It is not based on economic, state-specific or political criteria, but solely on artistic ones. Following a vote among the more than 300 members of the German Film Critics Association, it is awarded to German films shown in cinemas during the 2009 calendar year.
Further links:
- More information
