Bavarian Film Awards - 2006 Winners
by Andre Soares
© Christian Hartmann / Roxy Film
The winners of the 2006 Bavarian Film Awards — the most important German film prize after the German Academy’s Lolas — were announced yesterday at a gala ceremony in Munich.
The best film — or best production — Porcelain Pierrot (worth €200,000) went to a local product, Marcus H. Rosenmüller’s feel-good dark comedy Wer früher stirbt, ist länger tot / Grave Decisions (top). Spoken in one of the local Bavarian dialects, Rosenmüller’s feature-film debut became a surprise hit in Germany, earning more than 10 million euros at the box office. Rosenmüller also took home the prize for best young director.
Wer früher stirbt, ist länger tot (literally, "Whoever dies earlier, will remain dead longer") follows an 11-year-old Bavarian Catholic boy (Markus Krojer), who believes he’s committed way too many sins to be allowed into heaven. He tries to patch things up with God by trying to seduce his teacher (Jule Ronstedt) and then by plotting to murder her husband. (I haven’t seen the film, though it’s been generally described as a Heimatfilm — the German equivalent to the Hollywood films set in the "Heartland" of the United States. Those are movies in which people are simple, honest, God-fearing, just a tad oddballish, and completely untrue to life.)
The best director winner was Tom Tykwer for Das Parfum - Die Geschichte eines Mörders / Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (above), the film adaptation of Patrick Süskind’s highly successful and even more highly preposterous novel about a sniffing freak (Ben Whishaw, up for a rising star Bafta) who becomes fascinated with the body odor — or body scent, to be polite — of a beautiful young woman. Tykwer’s English-language film version, by the way, has earned more than 50 million euros in Germany alone. (Where it’s most probably been dubbed into German.)
Jürgen Vogel was chosen best actor for his performance as a man who discovers love while dying of cancer in Emmas Glück / Emma’s Bliss, while veterans Monica Bleibtreu and Katharina Thalbach tied for the best actress prize for, respectively, Vier Minuten / Four Minutes and Strajk – Die Heldin von Danzig / Strike.
In Chris Kraus’s Vier Minuten (left photo, I unfortunately missed it at the last AFI FEST), Bleibtreu plays a piano teacher who tries to reform a murderess (best new performer Hannah Herzsprung) by developing the young woman’s musical talents, while Thalbach plays a semi-illiterate woman who becomes one of the founders of Poland’s Solidarity movement in veteran Volker Schlöndorff’s political drama.
Vier Minuten, the top winner at the 2006 Shanghai Film Festival, won two other awards: best screenplay for Kraus, and the VGF Award for best new producers Meike and Alexandra Kordes.
Among the other winners were Joseph Vilsmaier and Dana Vávrová’s Der Letzte Zug / The Last Train, about a cattle train filled with 688 Berlin Jews headed for Auschwitz, which received a special award; Die Wolke / The Cloud, the story of a nuclear plant disaster, directed by Gregor Schnitzler and voted the best youth film; and Florian Borchmeyer and Matthias Hentschler’s Havanna – Die neue Kunst, Ruinen zu bauen / Havana – The New Art of Building Ruins, which took the best documentary prize.
Full list of 2006 Bavarian Film Award winners
Full list of 2005 Bavarian Film Award winners
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Sundance Film Festival 2007 Links
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