News Releases

Increase in attendance at the AUDI Festival of German Films in Australia Audience Award for SOUL KITCHEN

2010-05-25

Held for the ninth year, the event (21.4. – 9.5.) which is jointly organised by GERMAN FILMS and Goethe Institut Australia posted around 26,000 admissions in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. The comedies and large-scale productions, in particular, made for full cinemas and a 30% increase in attendance. A total of 30 feature films, TV movies and five shorts were shown.

Fatih Akin‘s comedy SOUL KITCHEN had already become the front-runner during advance ticket sales and was presented with the „Golden Gnome“ Audience Award. The film was launched in the Australian cinemas following on after the festival.

Almost all of the film screenings were extremely well attended – especially THE WHITE RIBBON (DAS WEISSE BAND, Michael Haneke), MEN IN THE CITY (MAENNERHERZEN, Simon Verhoeven), THE CROCODILES 1 + 2 (VORSTADTKROKODILE 1 +2, Christian Ditter) as well as MY WORDS, MY LIES – MY LOVE (LILA, LILA, Alain Gsponer), JOHN RABE (Florian Gallenberger), WHISKY WITH VODKA (WHISKY MIT WODKA, Andreas Dresen), WEDDING FEVER IN CAMPOBELLO (MARIA, IHM SCHMECKTS NICHT, Neele Leana Vollmar) and THE DOOR (DIE TUER, Anno Saul) and BERLIN 36 (Kaspar Heidelbach) attracted an enthusiastic audience and received very good feedback in the media.

Festival guest Soenke Wortmann, who was honoured with three films in the festival program, was on hand to answer the audience’s questions and sign posters after the packed screenings of POPE JOAN (DIE PAEPSTIN). The authoress Erica Fischer experienced a very interested and open-minded audience during the conversations about AIMEE & JAGUAR (Max Faerberboeck).

A fascinating panel discussion followed after the sold-out performances of STORM (STURM, Hans-Christian Schmid) in Melbourne and Sydney. The screening of the TV three-parter THE WOLVES IN BERLIN (DIE WOELFE, Friedemann Fromm) was the best-attended film event in Melbourne. The great demand resulted in additional screenings being arranged at short notice for some of the films.

The event’s partners: Goethe-Institut Australia and Audi Australia
With support from AG Kurzfilm, Lufthansa, Fresenius Medical Care, DB Schenker Logistics, Schwarzkopf and many others.

For further information, please contact Nicole Kaufmann, email: Kaufmann@german-films.de.