by Becky Tan
The Filmfest Hamburg is the third largest film festival in Germany after Berlin and Munich. This year the 31st film festival showed 132 feature films from 48 countries, divided into 10 categories, including a category for young people: MICHEL Kinder und Jugend Filmfest, as well as and the Molodist Kyiv (Kiev) International Film Festival which came from Ukraine.
Director Albert Wiederspiel and his team welcomed 520 guests from 33 countries. There was an 17% increase in attendance over all past years with 52,700 tickets sold. There were over 1400 accredited participants.
In the end Wiederspiel stepped down from his job after excellent management over 21 years. In honor of Wiederspiel’s long accomplishments, a new prize was created: the Albert Wiederspiel Preis (Albert Wiederspiel Award) of 10,000 euros for best international film director. The winner of this new prize was the Iranian director Farhad Delaram for his film ACHILLES. There were 11 prizes in all. We were introduced to Wiederspiel’s successor Malika Rabahallah.