At the awards ceremony on October 1, 2025, held at the FILMFEST BAR @CODA CLUB, four Hamburg Producers Awards were presented by Hamburg’s State Councillor for Culture Jana Schiedek. In addition, the Arthouse Cinema Award and the Best International Innovation Distribution Award from the International Film Distribution Summit, which took place in Hamburg for the first time this year, were also awarded.

 

Since 2014, the Hamburg Producers Awards have honored the outstanding achievements of German producers as well as film and television production companies. They are awarded in the competition categories „International Cinema CoPro“, „German Cinema“, and „German Television Films“, each with prize money of €25,000. The Hamburg Producers Award German Series is endowed with €10,000.

 

The Hamburg Producers Award International Cinema CoPro goes to producers Georg Neubert, Katharina Weser, and Jasper Wiedhöft (Reynard Films) for the international co-production A Sad and Beautiful World (Director: Cyril Aris; Screenplay: Cyril Aris, Bane Fakih; Lebanon, Germany, USA). “The winning film,” stated the jury (Bettina Brokemper, producer; Mechthild Holter, talent agent; İlker Çatak, director), “managed to make us laugh and cry. It is political in its intimacy, allows us to dream of a better world, and never forgets that the personal is always political. It tells the story of Lebanon’s past and future through a love relationship in which the dreamer and the realist must leave their comfort zones.”

 

The Hamburg Producers Award German Cinema goes to producer Kirill Krasovski (Blue Monticola Film) for Sehnsucht in Sangerhausen by director and screenwriter Julian Radlmaier. The jury (Lena Urzendowsky, actress; Zamarin Wahdat, cinematographer and director; Silvan Zürcher, producer) praised the film: “Beautifully shot, it floats from character to character, weaving its fragments, layers, and motifs into a lovingly playful and poetic cinematic mosaic. It touches on themes such as exclusion and the longing for belonging, raising questions about the kind of society we want to live in. It resurrects ghosts of the past that hold up a mirror to us (…) The film unfolds a utopia of humanity and peaceful coexistence, leaving us with hope for a world without xenophobia, but with plenty of humor.”

 

The jury also gave a special mention to the film Gavagai (Producers: Sutor Kolonko, Ingmar Trost; Director & Screenwriter: Ulrich Köhler).

 

The prize money for both categories, totaling €50,000, is provided by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

 

The Hamburg Producers Award German Television Films goes to producer Peter Hartwig (KINEO Film) for Polizei (Director: Buket Alakuş; Screenplay: Laila Stieler). “It is not only important but unfortunately also courageous to make a film about police violence,” said the jury (Malick Bauer, actor; Sabine Steyer-Violet, screenwriter and dramaturg; Sarika Lakhani, producer). “The film does not present us with a simple dichotomy of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’. Instead, it tells of all the shades of grey in between – through which the emotional core of the story shines: Anton, a young man lost between COVID, social disillusionment, and a search for self. A character that represents many of his generation…”

 

The Hamburg Producers Award German Series goes to producers Kirstin Wille, Alexandra Bauermeister, Phil Laude, and Ralph Schiller (DCM Pictures in cooperation with DiggiTales) for the series Almania (Director: David Gruschka; Screenplay: Thomas Mielmann, Phil Laude, Melina Natale, David Gruschka, Pejwak Ghasryani). The jury explained: “Full of humor and affection, Almania uses clever dialogue to lovingly let its characters clash without portraying any of them as one-dimensional. We see them in three dimensions – failing, succeeding, or devising absurd plans – while witnessing an ensemble performance that not only made us laugh but also touched us.”

 

The prize money of €35,000 is provided by the collecting society for film and television producers (VFF).

 

The newly established Arthouse Cinema Award of the international association of arthouse cinemas (C.I.C.A.E.), endowed with €25,000, goes to the German distributor Port au Prince Pictures for Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film The Secret Agent. The MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, as the sponsor of the award, is supporting the film’s release with PR activities. For the jury (Verena von Stackelberg, Wolf Kino, Berlin; Aurel Graf, Arthouse Kinos, Zurich; Mustafa El Mesaoudi, Lichtblick Cinema, Immegutefilme Distribution, Wuppertal), The Secret Agent “is not only a portrait of a dark period in Brazil’s history, but also an example of how arthouse cinema combines social relevance with cinematic intensity and artistic precision. The film remains not only in the mind but also in the heart: it makes us reflect on politics and memory, on fear and courage, on art, cinema, and resistance. That is precisely what arthouse cinema is about.”

 

As part of the expanded FILMFEST HAMBURG INDUSTRY DAYS, the Best International Innovation Distribution Award of this year’s International Film Distribution Summit was also presented in the evening. The award recognizes the work and commitment of international distributors who, with innovative and forward-looking strategies, help make high-quality films accessible to a wide audience. This year’s winner is the French world sales company Charade. The prize is endowed with in-kind services worth €10,000, provided by Comscore, Gruvi, and Usheru.

 

On the previous evening, twelve awards worth a total of €140,000 were presented at Café Schöne Aussichten to the best project pitches of this year’s European Work in Progress.

 

The remaining FILMFEST HAMBURG awards will be presented on October 4 before the closing filmRental Family.