All former awards - overview

International Competition - Internationale Jury

• Christian Baudissin, Bavarian Broadcasting Company, Commissioning Editor Documentaries, Germany
• Marek Hovorka, Director Jihlava Int. Documentary Film Festival, Czech Republic
• Stefan Majakowski, Director Shadows Int. Documentary Film Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Sirkka Moeller, Programming Director, Sheffield Int. Documentary Film festival, United Kingdom
• Sara Yamashita Rüster, Representative Documentary Film Departement, Swedish Film Institute, Sweden

Documentary Film Award from Bayerischer Rundfunk

The documentary film award from Bayerischer Rundfunk (10.000 EUR) goes to the film YAN MO – BEFORE THE FLOOD, directed by Yan Yu and Li Yifan, China

The jury explains its decision as follows:

"Yan Yu and Li Yifan show us the evacuation of a city "Before The Flood". After 2300 years, the city of Fen-jie on the Yang-Tze river has to make room for the waters of the Three Gorges Dam. During many months the film makers observe the worries and pains of a number of inhabitants, who have to prepare themselves for the pending relocation. A relocation which means that they are forced to demolish their own homes, their social networks and their livelihoods.

In the tradition of the classic, observational documentary film, the directors give themselves and their protagonists plenty of time to listen, to speak their minds and to wait for things to happen. They invite the viewer to succumb to a slower rhythm. This rhythm reflects the reality and the way of thinking of the people in this 2000 year-old city. The protagonists' ease and immediacy in front of the camera shows the degree of access the film makers achieved. We were particularly impressed by the excellent, steady, and unobtrusive handheld camerawork by Yan Yu, who seems to be instinctively sensing situations in advance. The directors' approach allows us, to experience the people of this far-away country, to understand their way of thinking – and to feel compassion without feeling emotionally manipulated."

The festival award for the Special Documentary (2.500 EUR) goes

to the film STAND VAN DE MAAN - SHAPE OF THE MOON, directed by Leonard Retel Helmrich, The Netherlands

The jury explains its decision as follows:

"Leonard Retel Helmrich's STAND VAN DE MAAN - SHAPE OF THE MOON lets us experience the situation of a family in Jakarta, which can be seen as a symbol for the religious and social tensions in Indonesia. Through the three generations and their respective roles within society we gain an insight that goes way beyond the usual bitesize of foreign news. The director, who is also the main cinematographer, observes everyday life and counters it with small and often funny details, that serve as metaphors for the bigger story. The camerawork is excellent and manages to seemingly erase the all barriers between the director and his protagonists. The director never takes a stand in the family conflicts, but observes from the inside and allows all protagonists their idiosyncracies. Both camera and montage make the family and their discussions come across as they are, rather than change them to fulfill 'filmic conventions'."

Jury Horizons

• Klaus Blanc, Germany
• Prof. Frank Heidemann, Germany
• Frank Werner, Germany

The festival award Horizons (3.000 EUR) goes to the film

Az Pase Borghe - The Other Side of Burka, directed by Mehrdad Oskouei, Iran

Az Pase Borghe - The Other Side of Burka deals with the relationship of the sexes to each other on the Southern Iranian island of Queshm. The suicide of a woman forms the point of departure of a compact description of numerous facets of life, from within the household to far out on the open sea, the workplace of the fishermen and smugglers. Women speak with impressive candidness about their problems, and by their own means they seek firm solutions within the possibilities of their own tradition and they draw, without any superficial accusations, a distinct picture of their society.

This film emphasizes the declarations and statements of the protagonists with a poetic language of images, innovative cutting and an enclosed arc of suspense. It portrays that which is foreign, without alienating it and with the picture of a local culture presents at the same time the wide scope of Islam.

A Special mention by the Jury of the Horizons Award goes to the film

Al Toufan - A Flood in Baath Country, directed by Omar Amiralay, Syria

A film like a surgical incision, each cut is calculated, sequences are precisely composed, its characters step silently to and fro, everything has its exact place on the dissecting table. Under the knife: A country, Syria,

40 long years firmly in the ideological grip of the Baath Party, a country which only a subjected person wishes to know, and calls for love. The eternally identical slogans and symbols, the ever present, ubiquitous portraits of the great state helmsman, all these things make up a desolate elegy of Orwellian characteristics.

In Al Toufan - A Flood in Baath Country Omar Amiralay clears the decks of the holiest principles of the documentary one after the other. There’s someone working here who’s read his Brecht, and won’t hide what he knows. Amiralay is not seeking the Arabesque, People in front of his camera are for him bearers of a rôle, and therefore, logically they play these rôles themselves, and with such brilliance. Superficially, nothing is authentic here. Although the people are not actually the main characters of his film, much more so it is the language itself, which speaks through the people throughout... demanding and lyrical, rhythmic and enlisting.
This film is like an experimental instruction, which understands how to provoke, and calls for disgust and laughter at the same moment in time.
One could argue and dispute about this film, one must argue about it.

The jury did just this for a long time, and also about what the current documentary film should and can be... so, it is a necessary film, you can’t say better than that!

Out of the Section New Films from Bavaria, the students' films Portrait einer Rothaarigen and Herr Zhu won ex aequo the Talent Award of the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern. Beissen, Beissen, Beissen won the AVID Award 2005.