LOCARNO WINNERS

AT FILMFEST HAMBURG

17.08.2021

Three films awarded at the Locarno Film Festival are on the programme of this year’s FILMFEST edition, including the Golden Leopard winner Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash by Indonesian director Edwin, produced by Fatih Akin’s Bombero International and The Match Factory.

»At the screening beforehand, we already felt that Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash by Edwin, Niemand ist bei den Kälbern (No One’s With the Calves) by Sabrina Sarabi and Hinterland by Stefan Ruzowitzky are very powerful and deserve to win an award. We are very pleased that they are now celebrating their German premieres in Hamburg«, says festival director Albert Wiederspiel.

With irony and across genres, Indonesian director Edwin’s Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash tells the love and suffering story of a driven man’s love and suffering. Ajo Kawir is a troublemaker who compensates his impotence through violence and hires himself out as a henchman in the local underworld. When he meets the female bodyguard Iteung, he not only encounters an equal opponent, but a chequered relationship also develops in the course of which Kawir has to confront his past. Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash is based on the novel of the same name by Eka Kurniawan and was awarded the Golden Leopard for Best Film at the Locarno Film Festival.

In the newcomer competition Cineasti del presente, Saskia Rosendahl won the Golden Leopard as best actress for her performance as Christin in the German entry Niemand ist bei den Kälbern (No One’s with the Calves). In Sabrina Sarabi’s second feature film, produced by Hamburg-based Weydemann Bros., she plays a 24-year-old woman who moves with her boyfriend to a farm in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern during the post-reunification period and actually dreams of a different life. The film is based on Alina Herbing’s debut novel of the same name and was shot mainly in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. Both films were supported by MOIN Filmfund Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein.

The Audience Award of the Locano Film Festival was given to the Austrian film Hinterland by Oscar winner Stefan Ruzowitzky (The Counterfeiters). The thriller, which was made in front of blue screen, focuses on a war veteran and ex-policeman who becomes involved in a serial killer affair in 1920s Vienna.

FILMFEST HAMBURG will take place from 30 September to 9 October 2021. Around 100 productions from all over the world will be shown as European, German or Hamburg premieres. Festival cinemas are the Abaton, CinemaxX Dammtor, Metropolis, Passage and the Studio-Kino.