Based on treatments that young and talented filmmakers had to submit by October 1, 2012, a three-member jury will pick the winner of the €15,000 fellowship. The jury has already been put together and includes three members who are closely associated with German cinema. All three want to actively support up-and-coming German filmmakers.

Hans-Christian Schmid
Author and director Hans-Christian Schmid has enriched the world of German and international cinema with a number of impressive works. Among them are Lichter (Distant Lights), Requiem, Sturm (Storm) and Was bleibt (Home for the Weekend), all of which screened in the Berlinale’s Competition section. Originally trained as a documentary filmmaker, Schmid orchestrates the material for his fictional films very meticulously, especially with regard to their dramaturgy. As managing director of 23|5 film productions, he has produced his own films since 2006. He also has a good nose for talented newcomers. For instance, 23|5 produced the second feature by director Robert Thalheim, whose debut film Netto (Net) won the Perspektive Deutsches Kino’s “FGYO-Award Dialogue en perspective” in 2005.

Nicolette Krebitz
Best known as an actress, Nicolette Krebitz (e.g. Ausgerechnet Zoe /Zoe of All People, Bandits and Unter Dir die Stadt /The City Below) could last be seen at the 2011 Berlinale in a work shown in the Perspektive, Ziska Riemann’s Lollipop Monster. In 2001, she and eleven other bold directors opened the first Perspektive Deutsches Kino with 99-Euro Films. She has directed two full-length fictional films (Jeans and Das Herz ist ein dunkler Wald / The Heart Is a Dark Forest); and an episode from the omnibus film Deutschland 09 (Germany 09 -13 Short Films about the State of the Nation), which ran out of competition in the Competition section of the Berlinale. She is also a member of the band Terranova, and is currently directing her third feature.

Heino Deckert
As managing director of ma.ja.de film productions, which he founded in 1991, as well as of Deckert Distribution, Heino Deckert has focused on the production of documentary films for which he sees a potential on the international market. In 2012, he took part in the Berlinale Forum with the film Die Lage (Condition) by Thomas Heise. Through his engagement in European networks, Deckert has contributed significantly to documentary culture in Europe. In the past years, he has also produced fictional features and presented a number of them at category “A” festivals – including, most recently, Sergei Loznitsa’s Im Nebel (In the Fog) at the 2012 competition in Cannes.