2013 German Film Awards

"Oh Boy" took home 6 Lola's, including Best Picture, Best Director & Screenplay & Score and acting prizes for Lead & Supp. Actors (Tom Schilling/ Michael Gwisdek). This miracle of a movie now has not just a firm place in my heart, but also its own page in German cinematic history.

"Cloud Atlas" sweeps the tech categories, winning 5 awards for Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Costume Design and Make-Up.

Barbara Sukowa beat Martina Gedeck to win the Best Lead Actress Lola for her portrayal as the title character in "Hannah Arendt", which also took home the runner-up prize for Best Picture. Together with 3rd place winner "Lore" that's two Nazi movies out of three..... thank God for "Oh Boy"!

2013 German Film Awards- preview

This year's German Film Awards will be handed out tomorrow night. The 6 movies nominated for Best Film in order of preference: "Oh Boy" > "Cloud Atlas" > "Die Wand" > "Lore" = "Hannah Arendt" >>> "Quellen des Lebens".

Award Predictions:
Best Film: "Oh Boy" (Gold), "Cloud Atlas" (Silver), "Hannah Arendt" (Bronze)
Best Director: Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski, Tom Tykwer "Cloud Atlas"
Best Lead Actor: Tom Schilling "Oh Boy"
Best Lead Actress: Martina Gedeck "Die Wand" (or Barbara Sukowa "Hannah Arendt" --> a tough one!)
Best Supp. Actor: Michael Gwisdek "Oh Boy"
Best Supp. Actress: Margarita Broich "Quellen des Lebens"
Best Screenplay: "Oh Boy"
Best Cinematography: "Lore"
Best Editing: "Cloud Atlas"
Best Production Design: "Cloud Atlas"
Best Costume Design: "Cloud Atlas"
Best Make-Up: "Cloud Atlas"
Best Score: "Oh Boy"
Best Sound Design: "Cloud Atlas"

Die Wand (The Wall)

Julian Roman Pölsler's literary adaptation "Die Wand (The Wall)" is extraordinary in a somewhat perplexing way: it's a survival tale, a single-woman performance piece, a modern-day fable, a National Geographic special, a somber psychological drama, a subtle sci-fi thriller and a philosophical discourse on the essence of humanity all in one- a cinematic anomaly that's at once breathtakingly boring and stupendously exciting.

Despite, maybe even because of the excruciating formal restrictions (featuring one lone actress, voice-overed throughout), a soaring sense of creative freedom and narrative mastery is palpable, allowing the profundity of the heroine's reflections on man and nature, moral and faith to seep through and sink in. Martina Gedeck is superb as the sole face and voice of the movie, but the true star here is the ceaseless, piercing, wrenchingly exquisite monologue originally penned by Marlen Haushofer. The beauty and power of the German word has seldom been so eminently displayed on film.

Oh Boy x3

Jan Ole Gerster's "Oh Boy" is not about world wars, Stasi or leftist revolutionists, doesn't deal with intellectual debates, moral predicaments or historic traumas, but in giving the young and lost a voice, in pondering the battered beauty of Berlin, in celebrating- with miraculous precision and effortlessness- the hilarity and sorrows of the everyday, the little triumphs and unspoken heartbreaks of the here and now, it found a cinematic langauge all its own and felt the pulse of a generation. It's the best thing to have happened to German cinema in a long time.

After third viewing, still love it more than I can say.