Award
Grimme Awards: Me Too, war and presenter in stockings
Prize at the 60th Grimme Awards ceremony in the Marl Theater. photo
© Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
The Grimme Awards stand for top quality television. On Friday, 17 productions were honored in the Marl City Theater – with a presenter who took off her pumps and continued in stockings.
How do you host a gala where you also receive a prize? Presenter Siham El-Maimouni had an idea at the Grimme Awards ceremony on Friday evening in Marl: to the astonishment of the audience, she took off her high shoes in the middle of the presentation and left the stage. Shortly thereafter, she emerged as an award winner Stockings back in. The previously awarded presenter Sarah Bosetti took the microphone for the laudatory speech.
“I won’t wear them again,” said Maimouni, looking at the uncomfortable shoes when she got back on stage and continued in stockings. The elegant and tongue-in-cheek change of speakers was typical of a Grimme awards ceremony, where for the first time in the prize’s 60-year history there were more women than men among the winners.
Maimouni received the prize for a special edition of the show with the mouse in Morocco, the homeland of Maimouni’s parents. She herself was born in Duisburg. Sarah Bosetti’s show “Bosetti Late Night”, the show with the “bullshit button” for the audience, was honored by the jury for the dynamic with which the presenter broke up classic late night formats.
Other award winners
In addition to Bosetti’s show, the pilot episode of the talk show “The Last Drink with Anna Dushime” received a Grimme Prize. The black journalist interviewed Roberto Blanco at the cocktail bar – with persistence and excellent preparation, as the presenter attested to her. However, she was unable to answer the question of whether there would be many more following the pilot show. “It’s not a lack of talent among black people, it’s a lack of opportunity,” Dushime said.
One of the award-winning programs is “Ukraine – War Diary of a Pediatrician” (Arte). The film follows the work of doctor Vira Primakova in the intensive care unit of a children’s hospital in Lviv. The jury praised the film “Nothing that happens to us” (WDR), which also received a Grimme Prize, as an “extremely valuable contribution to the Me Too debate”. It’s about the accusation of rape after a party.
Disney+ takes a stand against racism with “Sam – A Saxon”
The Grimme Prize-winning production by the streaming provider Disney+ “Sam – Ein Sachse” about an Afro-German police officer in Saxony focused on combating racism. The series is based on a real case. Lead actor Malick Bauer thanked the real former Saxon police officer Samuel Meffire from the stage for the “intensive exchange” for the series.
With the story, Disney achieved something that no television editorial team had ever achieved before: “The first major Afro-German series that was so long overdue,” praised the jurors.
The ARD correspondent in Istanbul, Katharina Willinger, was honored for her special journalistic achievement. The jury praised her for persistently reporting on the suffering after the earthquake in Turkey, even when most of the cameras had already moved on. Willinger is also responsible for Iran. It was very difficult to work there because journalists and their informants were under constant surveillance, she said in the interview.
Private broadcasters are left empty-handed this year
In total, the Grimme Institute awarded 17 prizes, with the exception of Disney +, exclusively to public broadcasters. The private broadcasters came away empty-handed this year. The entire industry is under financial pressure. As a result, successful formats in entertainment are being bought from abroad and adapted for Germany, said the Grimme jury chairwoman for entertainment, Amna Franzke, in the podcast “Läuft” by the Grimme Institute and epd media. “We would like to have more courage to try things out.”
Employees forego their salary
The Grimme Institute itself is also in financial problems. A six-figure financial hole for the current year could only be closed by foregoing employees’ salaries. The company’s second major competition, the Grimme Online Award for quality productions on the Internet, is in danger of being canceled this year due to a lack of money.
The new acting managing director Peter Wenzel now wants to tackle the restructuring, as he told the dpa on Friday. “It’s good that we’re celebrating 60 years of the Grimme Awards,” said NRW Media Minister Nathanael Liminski on the show stage. “I will do everything to ensure that we also celebrate 120 and 360.”
Prize winners 2024 Podcast from the epd together with the Grimme Institute on this year’s prize winners