STORY: Nine Oscar nominations. The sensation that “Nothing New in the West” causes in the international film world is record-breaking. Never before has a German film been nominated in the top category “Best Film” at the Academy Awards. The producer of the World War drama, Malte Grunert, was overwhelmed on Tuesday. “It’s surprising and hasn’t quite arrived yet. But it makes us very happy.” The work, directed by Edward Berger, is the first German film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1928 novel of the same name. It depicts the devastation and horror of World War I from the perspective of a German soldier. Malte Grunert: “The first film adaptation of Remarque was made in Hollywood in 1929, at a time when this film could no longer have been made in Germany. The film was banned in Germany shortly after it was released. The book was burned, Remarque had to leave the country and Hollywood became a haven, not only for Remarque, but for many female artists who had to flee Europe.” The film acts as a reminder, and not only with a view to current wars. “In “Nothing New in the West” the story is told of young high school students who, driven by false propaganda and lying national pride, go to war and think it would be an adventure. And to remember that war is not an adventure, but The fact that people die in war seemed to us to be a relevant and timely topic, even before the conflict in Ukraine.” “Nothing New in the West” has also been nominated in the categories “Best International Film”, “Best Film Music” and “Best Adapted Screenplay”. The science fiction action comedy “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is launched as a particularly fierce competitor in the race for the most prestigious awards in the film world. The spectacle about a Chinese immigrant who gets into trouble with the US tax authorities and is catapulted into a multiverse of possibilities has been nominated a total of eleven times. So it will be exciting on March 12th when Los Angeles says: And the Oscar goes to…