Edgar Reitz is Jury President at the upcoming International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg 2008

Five international film business professionals are jurors at the 57th International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg

Mannheim-Heidelberg, 13 October, 2008 --- German film director Edgar Reitz will preside over the International Jury at the 57th Mannheim-Heidelberg Filmfestival 2008. The jury, consisting of Reitz („Heimat“), Alexander Bohr, editor at the German national TV station ZDF, Canadian film producer Paul Martin Hus, Russian Raissa Fomina, the owner of Intercinema, and Jaana Puskala, Head of Promotion at the Finnish Film Commission, will confer the main awards at the Grand Festival Finale on 16 November, among which are the Main Award of Mannheim-Heidelberg, the Rainer Werner Fassbinder-Prize and the Special Award of the International Jury. The Jury will decide over 18 films from independent necwomer directors in International Competition at this years festival edition.

Since the Oberhausener Manifest, the declaration of war on tacky post-war cinema in Germany which was proclaimed in 1962, Edgar Reitz has been connected to the idea of author film and of „Young German Cinema“. After the first screening of the „Heimat“-cycle in 1984 the critics called „Heimat“ the sum and the requiem of German film. In 2004, Reitz was honoured „Master of Cinema“ at the Internationalen Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg. Among his other works are: „Deutschland im Herbst“, „Stunde Null“, „Mahlzeiten“.
Russian Raissa Fomina has been the owner of Intercinema since 1992. Intercinema distributes and promotes Russian arthouse films abroad (e.g. “The Return” by Andrej Zvjagintzev, Golden Lion Venice Film Festival), and foreign films in Russia (e.g. by Lars von Trier, Aki Kaurismäki).
Alexander Bohr has been a film editor at the German TV channel ZDF, first art director of the film programme of 3sat and co-founder of the 3sat-series „Kennwort Kino“ since 1984. Since 1994, he has also been deputy director at the department Spielfilm III/ARTE and art director at the ARTE-film programme and ARTE-theme nights.
Jaana Puskala has been Head of Promotion at the International Department at Finnish Film Foundation since 19 years. She is currently in charge of promotion of finnish films abroad, at festivals and events around the world.
Martin Paul-Hus is a Canadian producer of international films who produced films by Amos Kollek, Nicholas Roegg, Peter Sehr and Renny Bartlett. In 2002, he was nominated for the Canadian Genie Award for „Eisenstein“. He won the Silver Leopard in Locarno for “Love the Hard Way“ and the Bavarian Award for Peter Sehr as Best Director.

More awards in Mannheim-Heidelberg are being conferred by the FIPRESCI-Jury, the Ecumenical Jury and the Jury of Cinema Owners.

The 57th International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg takes place from 6 to 16 November 2008. The opening night is on 6 November featuring the international premiere „The Baby Formula“ by Canadian filmmaker Alison Reid.

Portrait of the International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg

We discover young talents - new film directors who are at the beginning of their career and who are highly talented. Newcomers - for us this means: directors who at best made themselves a name in their own country but who are internationally unknown. Young cinema authors who deserve discovery. We present a rigorous selection, strictly reserved to quality - without compromises. Our films are genuine premieres. We do not screen any films which have already been seen at other big festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno or at any German festival - not a single one. And the selection process is a radical one: these have to be really outstanding new arthouse films by newcomer-directors. Even here we do not make compromises. We manage to present some 40 new feature films (mainly fiction films (75%) but also cinematographically interesting documentaries and short films) - films which are to a large extent unknown to the international film industry.

Each year we comb very carefully through the entire new production of arthouse films by newcomers. Some 2,500 of these films are viewed and judged by our scouts and staff, numerous tips are gathered, resulting in an overview that an individual film buyer, for example, cannot acquire or organise due to restrictions of both time and human resources. In a very careful final selection we then choose, from a pool of some 700 feature films, those 35 to 40 films that we present to you - in the »International Competition« and in the »International Discoveries« programme.

International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg
Marija Capek, Press & PR
Collini-Center, Gallerie
68161 Mannheim, Germany

Phone: +49(0)621-15 60 153
Fax: +49(0)621-291564
e-mail: press@iffmh.de

This release was published on openPR.