Berlinale 2001 competition entry My Sweet Home by Filippos Tsitos, Hans Weingartner's Max Ophuels Prize-winner White Noise (Das Weisse Rauschen) Benjamin Quabeck's HypoVereinsbank Prize-winner No Regrets (Nichts Bereuen), and Marco Kreuzpaintner's medium-length film Der Atemkuenstler are among 105 titles submitted for this year's First Steps Award open to recently completed graduation films from German film schools.

As with last year, a total $56,273 (DM 125,000) will be on offer as prize-money to the budding filmmakers in the categories "Feature Length Film" (DM 50,000) , "Film up to 60 minutes" (DM 30,000), "Short and Animation Film up to 20 minutes" (DM 20,000) and "Documentary" (DM 25,000).

The Awards, which are supported by the production companies teamWorx, Constantin Film and Spiegel TV, broadcaster SAT.1 and Mercedes Benz, will be presented on August 30 during the Berlin-Brandenburg International Media Week, with screenings of nominated films featured in the BerlinBeta Film Festival.

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