Sibel Kekilli in Feo Aladag's When We Leave (top); Anamaria Marinca, Kerry Fox in Hans-Christian Schmid's Storm (upper middle); Lars Eidinger, Birgit Minichmayr in Maren Ade's Everyone Else (lower middle); Moritz Bleibtreu (right) in Fatih Akin's Soul Kitchen (bottom)
THE WHITE RIBBON Leads the 2010 Lola Race
Other Best Picture Lola nominees are Feo Aladag's When We Leave, which earned a total of six Lola nominations, including Best Actress for Sibel Kekilli, the star of Fatih Akin's 2004 Lola winner Head-On.
In When We Leave, Kekilli plays a willful Turkish woman who flees Istanbul for Germany, where she finds herself at odds with her traditional Muslim family. (The latter plot point parallels Kekilli's real-life experience after German tabloids revealed the actress had appeared in adult films prior to Head-On).
Also, Hans-Christian Schmid's Yugoslav war crimes drama Storm, starring Anamaria Marinca (of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) as a witness and Kerry Fox as a Hague's Tribunal prosecutor, and Maren Ade's drama Everyone Else, starring Lars Eidinger and Best Actress nominee Birgit Minichmayr as a married couple who, while on vacation, become a little too attached to another couple.
Plus Fatih Akin's ensemble comedy Soul Kitchen, an ensemble piece featuring Moritz Bleibtreu and Birol Ünel, and the winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2009 Venice Film Festival.
And finally, Sherry Hormann's Desert Flower, a biopic of Somalian-born supermodel turned anti-female-circumcision activist Waris Dirie, played by Liya Kebede. Desert Flower won the Audience Award for Best European Film at the 2009 San Sebastian Film Festival.
The German Film Award winners will be announced on April 23 in Berlin.