Prize of the Jury of the Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia (EUR 5,000)

Members of the Jury:
Barbara Engelbach (Cologne), Nikolaj Nikitin (Cologne), Ruth Schiffer (Düsseldorf), Ulrike Sprenger (Konstanz), Stefan Westerwelle (Cologne)


A Letter to Uncle Boonmee
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Thailand 2009, 18 min, Beta SP, colour

Statement:
The jury of the Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia awards its prize to a film which, while pretending to be a failed project, masterfully opens ever new visual and associative spaces. The film ranges between a biographical story, a reflection of cinematographic narratives right to the representation of political and historical contexts.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s film A Letter to Uncle Boonmee is convincing in its clever design and sensuality.

Special Mention

Elefantenhaut
Severin Fiala and Ulrike Putzer
Austria 2009, 34,5 min, 35 mm, colour

Statement:
Elefantenhaut portrays a woman in rural Austria between her work as a packer in a print shop and her nursing her bed-ridden mother. The film is captivating in its outstanding directing, which gives the lay actor the space to contributed her personal experiences and make these seminal for the film. Thus the film becomes a precise milieu study beyond all clichés.