pandemic
Almost 25,000 visitors to the Hamburg Film Festival
The actor Gustav Peter Wöhler (l) and the festival director Albert Wiederspiel at the 29th Hamburg Film Festival. Photo: Ulrich Perrey / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Ten days, more than 110 films and thousands of visitors. The Hamburg Film Festival started at half speed in its second Corona year. Festival director Albert Wiederspiel is satisfied.
More visitors, more films and a lot of celebrities on the red carpet: The Hamburg Film Festival was able to reach significantly more film fans in 2021 than in 2020.
In total, almost 25,000 people saw the around 110 films at the festival, as the makers announced at the weekend in Hamburg. That corresponds to more than half of the number of visitors in 2019 – the last pre-Corona edition.
“We are very pleased and once again proves how enthusiastic the Hamburg audience is about cinema, film and festivals and we all long for live culture,” said festival director Albert Wiederspiel. His wish for the anniversary edition in 2022 is a one hundred percent festival without space restrictions, without masks and with even more visitors, many guests and parties. This year, the recovered, vaccinated or tested visitors were placed in a checkerboard pattern. In 2020 there were almost 14,000 visitors, which corresponded to a capacity utilization of around a third. The 30th edition of the film festival is scheduled for 2021.
The festival’s winning films included “Nobody is near the calves” by Sabrina Sarabi (producer award for the best German cinema production), “Lingui” by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (producer award for the best international cinema co-production), and “Schlaflos in Portugal” with Ulrike Tscharre and Oliver Mommsen (best German television production), the series “Warten auf’n Bus” with Ronald Zehrfeld and Felix Kramer (special award for serial formats), “Olga” by director Elie Grappe (Blickwechsel film award, “La Civil” by Teodora Ana Mihai (The Political Film), the film festival closing film “Where the sun rises in Paris” by Jacques Audiard (Art Cinema Award) and “Vortex” by Gaspar Noé (Award of the film criticism).
The audience voted “Little Palestine, Diary of a Siege” by Abdallah Al-Khatib as the winner of the audience award. “Hive” by Blerta Basholliden received the NDR Young Talent Award.
Festival boss Albert Wiederspiel and his team had once again shown a good nose for great productions this year: Numerous films selected months ago for the program had recently also impressed at the international film festivals in Cannes, Locarno and Venice.
There were also a lot of celebrities on the red carpet. Kenneth Branagh, Jonas Nay, Ronald Zehrfeld, Hannelore Hoger, Charly Hübner, Anna Schudt, Barbara Auer, Hermine Huntgeburth, Victoria Trauttmannsdorff, Peter Lohmeyer and Gustav Peter Wöhler were among the honors.