The Two Kompagnon-Fellowships for Berlinale Talents and Perspektive Deutsches Kino Go to Ana-Felicia Scutelnicu and Julian Pörksen Respectively. Congratulations!

Today, on the final evening of Perspektive Deutsches Kino, once again two Kompagnon-Fellowships were awarded. The prizes are presented for a new project to one author and/or director from Berlinale Talents 2019 as well as to a director from the 2018 edition of Perspektive Deutsches Kino. The awards are each endowed with prize money in the amount of 5,000 euros.

With the Kompagnon-Fellowships, Berlinale Talents and Perspektive Deutsches Kino aim to provide sustainable support for the work of directors and screenwriters based in Germany. In addition to the accompanying grant, selection for the distinction also offers recipients the opportunity to participate in a mentoring programme featuring practice-oriented coaching, with the aim of deepening their personal approaches to film and building up their connections within the industry.

“The main support is the acknowledgement itself — the fact that somebody believes that your project has the potential to be a great film,” comments filmmaker Jide Tom Akinleminu, who received one of last year’s Kompagnon-Fellowships. (You can read more about Jide Tom Akinleminu and his project When a Farm Goes Aflame, the Flakes Fly Home to Bear the Tale as well as the Kompagnon-Fellowship itself in this interview.)

This year, jury members Andrea Hohnen, Jerry Hoffmann and Trini Götze chose the treatments Transit Times by Ana-Felicia Scutelnicu (Berlinale Talents 2019) and To Be Continued by Julian Pörksen (Perspektive Deutsches Kino 2018).

The Jury Statement for the Project Transit Times by Ana-Felicia Scutelnicu:

Moldavia, the beginning of the 1990s, in the post-Soviet transitional period: a family experiences the decay of old familiar structures, and the strong mother’s increasingly desperate survival strategies eventually cease to be of any help. Transit Times takes a look at the plight of individuals who are forced to leave their homelands against their will. The visual power of Ana-Felicia Scutelnicu’s previous films instils us with great faith that this current project will also bear her very own sensual and poetic signature.

The Jury Statement for the Project To Be Continued by Julian Pörksen:

As she lies dying, the adult children of a matriarch learn of her plan to have herself cryogenically frozen. What unfolds afterward around her deathbed is a tenderly observed family crisis, a surreal grotesque featuring copious gallows humour. From his artistic experiences in between the worlds of theatre and film, Julian Pörksen develops an idiosyncratic universe of characters that in our estimation promises to deliver a highly individual and special film.

Please feel free to request more information and/or images from the awards ceremony: