The main prize was divided this year and the honorary prize went to film veteran Werner Herzog. The German Documentary Film Award was presented on Friday evening.
Director Werner Herzog (79) received the German Documentary Film Award for his life’s work. This was announced by Südwestrundfunk.
The director, producer and author is one of the most important and influential filmmakers worldwide. Since 1962, the native of Munich has directed more than 30 documentaries for cinema and television.
Laudator Wim Wenders said to Herzog when the award was presented in Stuttgart: “Your more documentary films had many fictional elements and your fictional films had ludicrous documentary aspects – you actually smashed all the boundaries between these genres and moved mountains with both elements.” The honorary award of the documentary film prize is awarded by the SWR Doku Festival and the Media and Film Society Baden-Württemberg (MBG).
Main prize is shared
The German Documentary Film Prize is awarded in six categories. The main prize, endowed with 20,000 euros and donated by SWR and MBG, was shared this year and went to the film director Maria Speth for “Mr. Bachmann and his class” and to Franz Böhm for “Dear Future Children”.
Jury members included Regina Ziegler, Gero von Boehm and Campino. The recording of the award ceremony is available on the SWR Doku Festival website.
For a documentary film in the field of music, Enrique Sánchez Lansch was awarded the SWR Music Prize, which is endowed with 5000 euros, for his film “A Symphony Of Noise – Matthew Herbert’s Revolution”. Ruth Rieser received the 5,000 euro prize from the Norbert Daldrop Funding for Art and Culture for “Interpretation of Reality – Georg Stefan Troller”.
