Editor

• View
• Edit

Made in Germany - Sixth Festival of German Cinema in Los Angeles.

As part of the cooperation with the 19th AFI FEST (3. - 13.11.2005) in Los Angeles, German Films presented SOPHIE SCHOLL- THE FINAL DAYS (SOPHIE SCHOLL- DIE LETZTEN TAGE; US distributor: Zeitgeist) in the presence of the director Marc Rothemund and lead actress Julia Jentsch at the sold-out Arclight Hollywood cinema. Afterwards, a big opening party with 400 guests was held in the nearby LOFT on the roof of the multi-storey car park with a view over Hollywood.

MADE IN GERMANY presented a total of six new films as a „festival within a festival“. Apart from SOPHIE SCHOLL, other films gong down well with audiences included the thriller ANTIBODIES (ANTIKOERPER) in the presence of Christian Alvart, who represented Germany as one of the New Faces in European Cinema as part of an initiative of European Film Promotion. Ed Herzog presented his film ALMOST HEAVEN as an international premiere, Dominique Deruddere and the film composer Wolfram de Marco were met with an enthusiastic response for their film THE WEDDING PARTY (DIE BLUTHOCHZEIT). Lead actor Andreas Schmidt was very pleased about the sold-out performances for Andreas Dresen's film SUMMER IN BERLIN (SOMMER VORM BALKON). Christopher Buchholz and Sandra Hacker's HORST BUCHHOLZ - MY PAPA (HORST BUCHHOLZ - MEIN PAPA) also met with an interested audience response.

Whilst the festival was still underway there were several enquiries from American distributors and studios as well as talent agencies. Christian Alvart has been put under contract. There was also a lot of interest at the KODAK CONNECT Programme which enables young talents to make direct contact with representatives of the film industry based in Los Angeles.

As part of the International Short Film Competition Till Nowak's animation film DELIVERY was awarded by the Jury Prize as well as the Audience Award for Best Short Film in the competition. The director and the film composers Andreas and Matthias Hornschuh were on hand to accept the prizes in person.

„Our 6th festival was the most successful so far“, says Corina Danckwerts, the representative of GERMAN FILMS on the West Coast. „We had fantastic reports in the daily newspapers and specialist magazines as well as large interest from distributors, constantly full cinemas and, consequently, also very happy directors and filmmakers who were able to use the trip to Hollywood to make contacts with the local film industry. We are very happy that our well-established trademark „Made In Germany“ stood out in the international framework of the AFI FEST 2005 as a country focus with a very good response“.

The event's partners were: AFI Fest 2005, BKM, Filmfoerderungsanstalt, FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, FilmFoerderung Hamburg, Filmstiftung NRW, MFG Baden-Wuerttemberg, Mitteldeutsche Medienfoerderung and Nordmedia. The event was supported by the German Consul General in Los Angeles and ARRI Film + TV Services.