Lars Kraume’s drama has nine nominations, including Best Film and Best Director; Colonia, A Heavy Heart and Me & Kaminski score five nominations.
Lars Kraume’s Nazi hunter thriller The People vs. Fritz Bauer (Der Staat Gegen Fritz Bauer) is the hot ticket for this year’s German Film Awards (aka Lolas) after garnering nine nominations.
The co-production between Berlin’s zero one film and Cologne-based TERZ Film attracted nods in the categories for Best Feature Film, Best Screenplay, Best Direction, Best Lead Actor (Burghart Klaußner), and Best Supporting Actor (Ronald Zehrfeld) as well for production design, costume design, make-up, and the film score.
Kraume’s film – which is being handled internationally by Beta Cinema - had its world premiere on Locarno’s Piazza Grande last August where it won the Audience Award, and was named by the Best German Film of 2015 by the German Film Critics Association at their annual awards ceremony during February’s Berlinale.
Lead actor Klaußner, who played the eponymous attorney general hunting down SS fugitive Adolf Eichmann, himself received Best Actor honours at January’s Bavarian Film Awards and was voted Best Actor of 2015 by the German critics.
The People vs. Fritz Bauer will be competing for the top honour of the Golden Lola – or Silver and Bronze – with five other nominated films: Theresa von Eltz’s drama 4 Kings; Tom Tykwer’s A Hologram For A King, starring Tom Hanks; David Wnendt’s satire Look Who’s Back; Doris Dörrie’s Fukushima, Mon Amour; and Student Oscar-winner Thomas Stuber’s debut feature A Heavy Heart.
While Kraume’s film is this year’s clear favourite with nine nominations in the 16 categories, Florian Gallenberger’s Chile-set drama Colonia, Wolfgang Becker’s Me & Kaminski, and A Heavy Heart all attracted five nominations apiece.
In addition, Dominik Graf’s portrait of the late film critic Michael Althen, Then Is It The End?, is in the running for the documentary Lola against David Bernet’s Democracy and Nicolas Steiner’s Above And Below, while the honours for the best children’s film will be fought out between Alain Gsponer’s latest take on the classic Heidi and Wolfgang Groos’ The Pasta Detectives 2, based on the successful children’s books by Andreas Steinhöfel.
Germany’s State Minister for Culture and Media, Monika Grütters, provides cash prizes totalling almost $3.4m (€3m) for the awards organised under the auspices of the German Film Academy.
The nominees for the three Best Film categories are already winners in a sense as the nominations themselves are linked to generous nomination premiums to be invested in a future film project: $284,000 (€250,000) for each of the six nominated feature films, $142,000 (€125,000) each for the children’s films, and $114,000 (€100,000) each for the three documentaries.
Two awards have already been announced: the Most Popular Film of 2015 for Fack Ju Göhte 2 and the Honorary German Film Award to the veteran producer Regina Ziegler who is currently producing the English-language film Return To Montauk, the latest feature by Volker Schlöndorff,
The awards ceremony will be held in Berlin on May 27.
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