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The German Film Award goes to…

The German Film Award – the “Lola” – is Germany’s highest-endowed cultural prize.

18.06.2015
© dpa/Sören Stache - German Film Award

With seven nominations each, this year’s favourites for the 65th German Film Award are a real-time thriller entitled “Victoria” and a historical drama about the resistance movement, “13 Minutes”. “Victoria” star Laia Costa, Nina Hoss (“Phoenix”) and Katharina Marie Schubert (“A Godsend”) have good chances of winning a Golden Lola for best actress, while “13 Minutes” star Christian Friedel, Frederick Lau (“Victoria”) and Hanno Koffler (“Tough Love”) are nominated for best actor.

With a total of almost three million euros in prize money, the German Film Awards are Germany’s highest-endowed cultural prize. The prize money comes courtesy of Monika Grütters, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. The Film Award is the centrepiece of German film funding and has been awarded since 1951.

Only films that have already been released in German cinemas at the time of nomination can be accepted. The winners are picked by the 1,600 or so members of the German Film Academy and will be honoured on 19 June 2015 at the Lola Gala in Berlin’s Palais am Funkturm. Winners include not only the best directors, actors and cameramen, but also sound technicians and costume designers.

Since 1999, an art deco-style statue of a woman wrapped in a stylized film strip has been presented as the prize - the Lola. The name is reminiscent of Marlene Dietrich’s legendary role as Lola in the famous film “The Blue Angel”, as well as of the Rainer Werner Fassbinder film of the same name. Tom Tykwer’s cinema hit “Run Lola Run” also uses the same name.

For the first time, director and producer Til Schweiger will also be receiving an unendowed award for the “most popular film of the year”. Since its launch in December 2014, his tragicomedy “Honig im Kopf” has drawn audiences of nearly seven million people to cinemas. “This is also an acknowledgement of a great achievement in creative and production terms”, says the actress Iris Berben, who is the Film Academy’s president.

The German Film Award will be presented in Berlin on 19 June 2015

www.deutscher-filmpreis.de

www.wildbunch-germany.de/movie/victoria

www.elser-derfilm.de

http://film.info/honigimkopf/

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