MADRID GOES INTERACTIVE

The move to Madrid’s Palacio de la Prensa cinema for this year’s festival proceeded without a hitch: over 5,000 spectators came to the 19th edition of the Festival of German Films which was held at the beginning of June at an even more centrally located venue. This year’s Audience Award went to Lars Kraume’s TERROR, an interactive film event that created quite a stir in Madrid – both among the audience, which gave its guilty or innocent verdict at the end of the trial’s presentation, as well as in the Spanish press which included reports in the national TV evening news. Actor Florian David Fitz really won over the hearts of the Madrid cinemagoers and was involved in animated and engaged discussions with the audiences during the Q&As after the sold-out performances for TERROR and THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DAY. The school screenings were once again extremely popular: over 800 children attended the screenings for RICO, OSKAR AND THE MYSTERIOUS STONE and over 400 attended the additional screening of THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DAY.

The successful collaboration with Bertelsmann/UFA continued with another special event presenting the silent film VARIETÉ by Ewald André Dupont from 1925 with live musical accompaniment. The musicians Stephen Horne and Martin Pyne were just as masterful in their use of a wide range of instruments when they set the film’s virtuoso images to music and were rewarded with a long round of applause.