BAUMI SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT AWARD
Together with Martina and Sandra Baumgartner and Pandora Film, the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW initiated the Baumi Script Development Award during the Berlinale to commemorate the work and life of Karl Baumgartner, the producer, distributor and founder of Pandora Film. The award is endowed with 20,000 euros. “Baumi”, as he was affectionately known to all, had an unparalleled eye for high-quality arthouse cinema. German and international authors can apply for the award with an English-language treatment. In this way, Baumi’s lifetime achievement is to be honored and to provide — in his interest — for the independent screenplay development of extraordinary international stories. Regulations and deadlines will be announced in July 2015, the first award ceremony will take place within the framework of the Berlinale 2016.
Karl Baumgartner was born in 1949 in Bruneck (South Tyrol/Italy). In 1981 he founded, together with Reinhard Brundig, Pandora Film. The distributor released such films as those of Yilmaz Güney, Andrej Tarkovsky and Jim Jarmusch. Karl Baumgartner died in 2014 at the age of 65.
(photo © Heike Herbertz/Film- und Medienstiftung NRW)