All Quiet On The Western Front

Source: Courtesy of TIFF

‘All Quiet On The Western Front’

Edward Berger’s Bafta and Oscar award-winner All Quiet On The Western Front has garnered 12 nominations for this year’s German Film Awards (aka Lolas), including for best feature film, best direction, best lead actor (Felix Kammerer), and best cinematography. 

Ilker Catak’s The Teachers’ Lounge, which premiered in the Berlinale’s Panorama section last month, received seven nominations, including best feature film, best direction, best screenplay and best lead actress (Leonie Benesch), while Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider has received four nominations for best feature film, best direction and in the best lead actor and actress categories (Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Mehdi Bajestani).

Four nominations also went to David Wnendt’s Sun And Concrete, which had its world premiere in the Berlinale Special section. The Seven Elephants production received a nomination for best feature film and nods in the screenplay, editing and sound design categories.

Another two productions were nominated for best feature film: Fatih Akin’s rapper biopic Rheingold and Sonja Heiss’ When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before, produced by Berlin-based Komplizen Film.

Each of the six nominated productions in that particular category received a cash premium of €250,000 from the State Ministry for Culture and Media (BKM) to be invested by the producers in a future film project.

Meanwhile, the three documentaries nominated in the best documentary category - Elfriede Jelinek - Language Unleashed, Kalle Kosmanaut, and Love, Deutschmarks and Death - were each awarded premiums of €100,000, and - Mission Ulja Funk and The Robber Hotzenplotz both picked up €125,000 nomination premiums after being selected to the Best Children’s Film category.

In total, €2.05m was paid out to the nominees in the three best film categories today (March 24).

Announcing the nominations in a live-streamed event from Berlin, the state minister for Culture and Media Claudia Roth revealed that the veteran filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff will be the recipient of this year’s honorary Lola for his services to German cinema, while the Lola for the year’s commercially most successful film will go to School Of Magical Animals 2 

The final winners of the Lola awards will now be voted upon by the members of the German Film Academy before the awards ceremony in Berlin on 12 May.