NEW DELHI: Happy New Year by K Lorrel Manning with Michael Cuomo as lead actor received the German Independence Award - Audience Award - presented by Peter Göttelmann, CEO Marketing of EWE AG - at the Oldenburg International Film Festival which concluded over the weekend.
Both the director and lead actor were present.
Director Markus Engel received the award for the best short film for his work The Last Guest with a special recommendation going to 15 Summers Later by Pedro Collantes.
The five-day festival was filled with 8 world premieres, 9 international premieres, 3 European premieres, 17 German premieres and a total of 55 films.
The festival opening gala was highlighted by the comedy No Sex Is No Option by Torsten Wacker in front of 1300 people at Oldenburg‘s EWE Arena with stars Stephan Luca, Anna Thalbach, Armin Rohde and Janin Reinhardt in attendance.
The Festival ended with the award ceremony and the premiere of Anduni - Where is Home with guest Florian Lukas.
Dr. Ketel by Linus de Paoli won the jury award of German Independence Award - Best German Film.
The international jury of Matthew Modine, Radley Metzger, Ildi Toth Davy, Soopum Sohn, and Matteo Lovadina said, "The film adventurously explores the techniques of film making. Pushing the boundaries of storytelling to an area that is unique in contemporary cinema."
Another highlight of the festival was the German premiere of US-Spanish co-production The Way by Emilio Estevez in attendance of Deborah Kara Unger and Yorick van Wageningen at the packed St. Lamberti Church, where the festival showed a film for the first time.
Among the many programming highlights were Brawler an energising tale about two brothers who fight for the same woman in a series of illegal bouts.
Among the guests of this year‘s festival were: Matthew Modine, Deborah Kara Unger, Inger Nilsson, Ted Kotcheff, Roger Fritz, Mark Polish, Arthur Brauss, Radley Metzger, Bela B. Felsenheimer, Stephan Luca, Anna Thalbach, Armin Rohde, Janin Reinhardt, Kostja Ullmann, Ken Duken, Florian Lukas, Marc Senter, Nathan Grubbs, Chris Sivertson, Noémie Merlant, and Burak Yigit.
