Berln Film Festival announced the prize winners of the section Perspektive Deutsches Kino, with the Compass-Perspektive-Award for the best film going to Janna Ji Wonders for the film Walchensee Forever. The prize is endowed with 5,000 Euros, and as a trophy, the director received a real compass, which is intended to serve as symbolic orientation and show her the direction to take going into the future.
The two Kompagnon-Fellowships Perspektive Deutsches Kino and Berlinale Talents went to Hristiana Raykova (Perspektive Deutsches Kino 2019) and to Ian Purnell (Berlinale Talents 2020) respectively.
Since 2017, the Kompagnon-Fellowship has been awarded for a new film project to an author and/or director from Berlinale Talents as well as to a director of Perspektive Deutsches Kino. With the Kompagnon-Fellowship, the Berlinale Talents and the Perspektive Deutsches Kino wish to sustainably support directors and screenwriters living in Germany in their work.
111 von Hristiana Rykova – Statement of the Jury: What are we ready to give up for our freedoms? The Bulgarian journalist Miroluba Benatova could no longer accept the new conditions of her news channel. She refused to have the questions prescribed and the answers dictated to her. Voluntarily, she went into the precarious situation of working as a taxi driver so that she could continue telling the stories of the people in her country. The director Hristiana Raykova accompanies Miroluba Benatova on her journeys. Passengers become the reflection of a society, in a country that ranks 111th in the world and last in the EU in terms of freedom of the press. In order to give form to the courage and determination of this clever rebellion, we would like to award the Kompagnon-Fellowship to Hristiana Raykova’s film 111.
Arctic Link von Ian Purnell – Statement of the Jury: Arctic Link by Ian Purnell is a hybrid documentary and a visual essay. There is a ship in the Arctic. It will lay the longest fiber optic cable under the eternal ice to provide the world with faster internet connections. This is only possible due to climate change. The hybrid documentary Arctic Link by Ian Purnell combines the stories of the people on the ship with the reality of life in the Arctic village and in virtual love stories. Moreover, it relates human desires to the irreversible effects of our actions on the planet. We are looking forward to an impressive visual journey into the heart of the darkness of our present age.
The Heiner-Carow-Prize 2020 for the promotion of German cinematic arts went to Natalija Yefimkina for Garagenvolk.
The prize, worth 5,000 Euros is awarded for the first time in the section Perspektive Deutsches Kino. The prize honors documentaries, feature or essay films that address the social and political issues of today and in history with extraordinary aesthetic means.