Fabian Stumm won the €30,000 best director prize for Sad Jokes at this year’s edition of the German Cinema New Talent Awards, presented at the Munich International Film Festival.
Stumm’s second film is a musing on the inherent comedy of the human condition, and stars Stumm himself, with Haley Louise Jones.
The jury of Mariko Minoguchi, Denis Moschitto, and Florian Koerner von Gustorf described the film as: “A focused look at the absurdities and vicissitudes of life, which can be harsh and abrasive, then simply unreal, and ultimately beautifully poetic.”
Sad Jokes will be released in Germany on September 12 by Salzgeber & Co. Medien, which is also handling world sales for the film.
The awards ceremony at the University of Television and Film (HFF) in Munich on July 5 also saw Cologne-based producer Semih Korhan Güner receive the €20,000 award for best production for Justine Bauer’s debut feature Smell Of Burnt Milk which was shot largely in dialect and set on a dairy farm in southern Germany.
Bauer is now working with Güner on developing his feature directorial debut Mein Stück Land which has already received script funding from Filmstiftung NRW.
The €10,000 award for best screenplay went to the HFF graduates Aaron Arens and Lukas Loose for their debut feature Places In The Sun which will be released in German cinemas by Filmwelt Verleihagentur on Augus 22t and is the first feature film production by the Munich-based outfit Maverick Films.
Arens and Loose’s prize, which also includes admission to a mentoring programme organised by Bavaria Fiction and supervised by development executive Thomas Kren, follows the City of Munich’s Starter Prize awarded to artistically outstanding projects by newcomer filmmakers.
The €10,000 award for best acting performance was garnered by the non-professional Ghanian actress Atika Jumaih Bashiru for her role in Jan Hendrik Lübbers’ debut feature O Chale , his graduation film from the ifs international filmschule köln.
The jury declared Bashiru’s performance in Lübbers’ docufiction “conveys a sincerity that has moved us. Her ability to express emotions and inner turmoil through her mere presence is impressive and proves that good acting doesn’t always have to be loud and expressive”.
The German Cinema New Talent Award is sponsored by Bavaria Film, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and DZ Bank and recognises outstanding achievements by emerging talent in feature films screened in the New German Cinema section of the Munich International Film Festival.
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