DAS FAST NORMALE LEBEN wins VFF Documentary Film Production Award 2025

Germany 2025, Director: Stefan Sick, Producers: Ulla Lehmann and Andrea Roggon, 135 min.

© DOK.fest München

Producers Ulla Lehmann and Andrea Roggon from AMA film receive the VFF Documentary Film Production Award 2025 for A NEARLY NORMAL LIFE. Sincere congratulations!


About the film: ​​Leni, Eleyna, Lena and Lisann live in residential care. They are loud and unpredictable and often drive the staff who look after them to despair. With a warm and gentle narrative style, this documentary observes the everyday life of the four young women over two years and reveals to us the importance of support and security. Ina Borrmann 

Jury statement

“If a film production is considered a risk in the financial sector, then a cinema documentary is a high-risk business. But there is an even higher risk: the production of a long-term documentary.

How many days of filming will be needed? Can the project be completed with the available budget? Will the protagonists stick with it or will they drop out in between? And will they be happy with the finished film?

Andrea Roggon and Ulla Lehmann embarked on this journey with an uncertain outcome, invested considerable personal funds from Ama Film and enabled director Stefan Sick to accompany four carefully selected girls from difficult family backgrounds for two years in a foster home. In the everyday life of their residential group, in crisis and conflict situations, in hope and disappointment, Sick's camera is empathetic, close, but always respectful, allowing us to sympathise and hope, reading the young faces and condensing A NEARLY NORMAL LIFE of the girls into an emotionally moving piece of documentary cinema.

Paving the way for this work and taking not only the protagonists, but also the parents and educators along for the ride over the course of two years, building trust, protecting them and ultimately convincing them to let the audience share in their very private moments requires the full commitment of everyone involved and can only succeed if the director and producer harmonise. Ama-Film has mastered this organisational challenge impressively: Congratulations on winning the VFF Documentary Film Production Award 2025!"

The film at the festival

The award-winning film A NEARLY NORMAL LIFE will be screened exclusively in cinemas as part of the 40th DOK.fest München in May 2025.

The VFF Documentary Film Production Award will be presented at a festive award ceremony with film screening on Thursday, 15 May 2024 at 8.00 pm at HFF Munich.

An award for passion and courage in production

The process of making a documentary film is particularly difficult to plan and often involves great uncertainty. Yet time and again producers demonstrate great courage and show special creativity and commitment in project development and film financing. With the presentation of the VFF Documentary Film Production Award at DOK.fest München, we honour the passionate commitment and the role of producers in the development of current cinema documentary projects.

The award is donated by the VFF Verwertungsgesellschaft der Film und Fernsehproduzenten mbH and is endowed with 7,500 euros. The award is the first in Germany to focus on the work of documentary film producers. In 2024 it will be awarded for the seventh time at DOK.fest München.

Here you can find out about the conditions of participation that had to be met.

Many thanks to our award donor and partner: