John Rabe is the clear favourite for this year's German Film Awards after picking up seven nominations including best film, and best director for Florian Gallenberger.

The film also picked up nominations for best lead actor for Ulrich Tukur, best supporting actor Steve Buscemi and best cinematography for Juergen Juerges.

In addition to John Rabe, best film nominations were bestowed on Uli Edel's The Baader Meinhof Complex, Ozgur Yildirim's Chiko, Christian Petzold's Jerichow, Andreas Dresen's Cloud 9 and Caroline Link's A Year Ago In Winter.

German Film Academy board member Jasmin Tabatabai and State Minister for Culture and Media Bernd Neumann announced the 2009 nominations during ZDF's breakfast news programme Morgenmagazin today (Friday March 13).

Thanks to funding from Neumann's ministry, premiums amounting to $2.48m (Euros 1.95m) were awarded to nominated films to be invested in future projects.

The six films nominated for best film each received $320,000 (Euros 250,000). The two films nominated in the best children's and youth film category, Lilly The Witch; The Dragon and The Magic Book, and Was Am Ende Zaehlt respectively received $160,000 (Euros 125,000). Two documentaries, Nobody's Perfect and Lenin Kam Nur Bis Luedenscheid, received $127,600 (Euros 100,000) each.

A further $1.1m (Euros 895,000) in prize-money will be distributed among the final Lola winners at the awards ceremony in Berlin on April 24.

The full list of nominations is available on the awards website.