Austrian Film Award Presented: All Winners at a Glance

Two films tied at the top and yet a clear winner: Mo Harawe's feature film debut "The Village Next To Paradise" triumphed at the 15th Austrian Film Awards, converting all its five nominations into trophies. Among them were the top category Best Feature Film, the Directing Award, and the honor for Best Screenplay. Nomination leader "Sleeping with a Tiger" by Anja Salomonowitz also ended the evening at the Vienna HQ7 Studios with five honors.

"Village Next To Paradise" triumphs at Austria's Film Awards

"I stand here alone, but the reality is that a film is made by a team," Mo Harawe, the big winner of the evening, humbly stated in his acceptance speech for the directing trophy. Later, his achievement as a screenwriter was also recognized. The awards for cinematography and casting completed the victory quintet.

The Maria Lassnig biopic "Sleeping with a Tiger", which entered the race with nine nominations, managed to realize its five honors more in the secondary categories. Makeup, set design, music, and sound went to Salomonowitz's work, which also shone with the award for Birgit Minichmayr as Best Actress. In the leading actor duo, Minichmayr was joined by German acting star Albrecht Schuch, who was honored for his role in "Peacock - Am I Real?" by Bernhard Wenger.

Beckermann wins documentary category

Documentary veteran Ruth Beckermann was victorious in the category of documentary works. With her long-term school observation "Favoriten", she won the statuette designed by VALIE EXPORT in this category.

The big loser of the evening, however, was Kurdwin Ayub's second feature film "Moon" with performance star Florentina Holzinger, which could not exchange any of its eight nominations for a film award. Josef Hader's comedy "Andrea Gets Divorced" managed to convert one of its seven nominations and won the honor for Thomas Schubert as Best Supporting Actor. Schubert's female counterpart was Gerti Drassl for her performance in the drama "Gina" by Ulrike Kofler.

Ceremony began with a minute of silence for Graz

The evening began with a joint minute of silence for the victims of the Graz attack. With this, the cinematic grand event of the local film scene honored those affected by the tragic events of Tuesday, even though the organizers decided to hold the film festival despite the attack. However, the traditional after-show party was canceled. "Especially art shows: We are not alone in pain," Stefanie Reinsperger was convinced of the decision to stick to the ceremony. The Burgtheater actress hosted the gala, directed for the second time in a row by Thomas W. Kiennast, together with Ö3 voice Philipp Hansa.

The evening was as (socio)political as ever. "No other industry has been hit as hard by the budget cut announcements as the Austrian film industry," lamented Arash T. Riahi, co-president of the Austrian Film Academy, about the downsizing of film funding. Many of the winners jointly appealed to the federal government to seek dialogue to maintain a central, tax incentive model to allow the Austrian film miracle to continue to flourish.

15th Austrian Film Award: Here Are the Winners

BEST FEATURE FILM
"The Village next to Paradise" by Mo Harawe

BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM
"Favoriten" by Ruth Beckermann

BEST SHORT FILM
"Land of the Mountains" by Olga Kosanović

BEST FEMALE LEAD
Birgit Minichmayr for "Sleeping with a Tiger"

BEST MALE LEAD
Albrecht Schuch for "Peacock - Am I Real?"

BEST FEMALE SUPPORTING ROLE
Gerti Drassl for "Gina"

BEST MALE SUPPORTING ROLE
Thomas Schubert for "Andrea Gets Divorced"

BEST DIRECTOR
Mo Harawe for "The Village next to Paradise"

BEST SCREENPLAY
Mo Harawe for "The Village next to Paradise"

BEST CASTING
Mohamed Mohamud Jama for "The Village next to Paradise"

BEST CAMERA
Mostafa El Kashef for "The Village next to Paradise"

BEST EDITING
Andrea Wagner for "Dear Beautiful Beloved"

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Anaïs Horn and Marcus Karkhof for "Veni Vidi Vici"

BEST MAKEUP
Sam Dopona and Verena Pellegrini for "Sleeping with a Tiger"

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Martin Reiter and Andreas Ertl for "Sleeping with a Tiger"

BEST MUSIC
Bernhard Fleischmann for "Sleeping with a Tiger"

BEST SOUND DESIGN
Hjalti Bager-Jonathansson, Johannes Baumann, Veronika Hlawatsch, and Tobias Fleig for "Sleeping with a Tiger"

HIGHEST AUDIENCE ATTENDANCE FILM
"80 Plus" by Sabine Hiebler and Gerhard Ertl

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.