German Film Critics Awards 2007 Winners
Sandra Hüller in Requiem (top); Ulrich Mühe in The Lives of Others (bottom)
Surprisingly, the Association of German Film Critics did not pick Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s internationally acclaimed Das Leben der Anderen / The Lives of Others as the best German film of 2006. Instead, their choice was Hans-Christian Schmid’s Requiem, based on the real-life story of a woman who believed herself possessed by the devil. (That same story also inspired the undemonic The Exorcism of Emily Rose.) Henckel von Donnersmarck had to content himself with winning the best first film prize.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, The Lives of Others has had the biggest opening for a German-language film ever in the United States. (I’m assuming that those figures — as usual — haven’t been adjusted for inflation. I mean, what about Das Boot?) Having been greeted with overwhelmingly positive notices in Germany and abroad, the — in my invariably humble opinion, overlong and unconvincing — spy melodrama is up for a best foreign-language film Academy Award.
As the bedeviled Requiem lead, Sandra Hüller was voted best actress (she also won the Silver Bear at last year’s Berlin Film Festival), while Ulrich Mühe, as the conflicted spy in The Lives of Others, was chosen best actor.
Wolfgang Kohlhaase was the best screenwriter for Sommer vorm Balkon / Summer in Berlin, directed by Andreas Dresen. The film revolves around the travails of two women (Inka Friedrich, Nadja Uhl) spending the summer in Berlin.
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Tags: Film Awards, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, German Film Critics Awards, Hans-Christian Schmid, Requiem, Sandra Hüller, Summer in Berlin, The Lives of Others, Ulrich Mühe, Wolfgang Kohlhaase
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