Germany’s Reynard Films wins €25,000 Hamburg co-pro award for ‘It’s A Sad And Beautiful World’

Leipzig-based Reynard Films has won the €25,000 Hamburg Producers Award International Cinema CoPro for Cyril Aris’ It’s A Sad And Beautiful World at this week’s Filmfest Hamburg. 

The cash prize is funded by Hamburg’s ministry of culture and media and is awarded to the German coproducer of an international coproduction.

The romantic drama spanning three decades is the second collaboration between Georg Neubert, Katharina Weser, and Jasper Wiedhöft’s Reynard Films with Georges Schoucair and Myriam Sassin’s Lebanese outfit Abbout Productions after co-producing Aris’ 2020 feature documentary Dancing On The Edge Of A Volcano.

It’s A Sad And Beautiful World premiered at Venice’s Giornate Degli Autori last month where it won the audience award. It had its German premiere in the Kaleidoscope sidebar of the Filmfest Hamburg and is Lebanon’s entry to the best international film category at the Oscars.

Neue Visionen has German rights.

Meanwhile, the €25,000 Hamburg Producers Award German Cinema went to Blue Monticola Film’s Kirill Krasovski, producer of Julian Radlmaier’s Phantoms Of July which had its German premiere in the Filmfest’s after its world premiere in Locarno’s international competition in August.

The romantic adventure is is being handled internationally by Spain’s Bendita Film Sales; Grandfilm is releasing the film in German cinemas in November.

The jury also gave a special mention to writer-director Ulrich Köhler’s drama Gavagai, produced by Ingmar Trost of Cologne-based Sutor Kolonko.

Two awards were also presented to German TV productions screening in the Filmfest Hamburg’s Televisionen sidebar with cash prizes sponsored by the Film & Television Producers’ Rights Association (VFF). The €25,000 prize for the best TV film went to Peter Hartwig’s KINEO film for Buket Alakuş’ psychological study Police, while the third season of the comedy series Almania, directed by David Gruschka and produced by DCM Pictures in cooperation with DiggiTales, took home the €10,000 prize for German series.

This year was the first time the awards ceremony served as the backdrop for the CICAE arthouse cinema award to support a film’s German theatrical release chosen by a jury of three German exhibitors. The cash prize of €25,000, provided by Hamburg’s MOIN film fund - a five-fold increase on the previous amount of €5,000 - went to Berlin-based Port au Prince Pictures for Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent which has its German premiere as part of the Filmfest’s Filmmaker in Focus showcase on October 3.

The best international innovation distribution award of this year’s International Film Distribution Summit (IFDS) was also presented for the first time at Wednesday’s awards ceremony to Paris-based sales company Charades.

Andrea Romeo of Italian distribution company I Wonder Pictures described the co-founders Carole Baraton, Pierre Mazars and Yohann Comte as “brilliant, confident, visionary, but, most of all, working with them is fun, is a joy. They make your film part of something bigger. They are great human beings and great professionals”.

This prize comprises in-kind services worth €10,000 from Comscore, Gruvi, and Usheru.

• Helge Albers on ramping up MOIN’s support for Filmfest Hamburg and indie cinema

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