A Jihad for Love praised

There were prizes for German documentaries at international festivals in São Paulo, Paris, Thessaloniki and Prague.

Two co-productions were successful at the One World International Human Rights Documentary Festival in Prague: LETTER TO ANNA by Eric Bergkraut (CH/DE) received the Václav Havel Special Award, A JIHAD FOR LOVE by Parvez Sharma, a gay activist and former journalist with India's TV channel, NDTV, (US/GB/FR/DE/AT) a Special Mention.

The German production COSMONAUT POLYAKOV by Dana Ranga was named the Best Feature-Length Film at the International Documentary Film Festival.

It’s all true which ended in São Paulo at the weekend. The festival, which will now be touring in five other Brazilian cities until the end of April, is the most important of its kind in Latin America.

March had already seen several German documentaries win important prizes at international festivals: Volker Koepp received the Grand Prix for his film ELDER BLOSSOM (HOLUNDERBLUETE) at the Cinéma du Réel in Paris.

The second German competition entry, WOLLI IN PARADISE (WOLLIS PARADIES) by Gerd Kroske, was honoured with a Special Mention.

No less than three prizes were awarded at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival to the Greek-German co-production THE LOVERS OF AXOS (DIE LIEBENDEN VON AXOS) by Nicos Ligouris.

The film was presented with the FIPRESCI Award , the Greek Film Center Award and the ERT3 Broadcasting Award.