On Sunday, November 23, exground filmfest 27 closed a successful festival edition with the award ceremony followed by a party at Caligari FilmBühne. In the past ten days the festival presented highlights of international independent film Wiesbaden. Numerous guests from all over the world came to the Hessian state capital to present their works at the festival to the audience in packed cinemas. Following the second screening the winners of all exground filmfest’s competitions were announced.
German Shortfilm Award
The German Shortfilm Award is the festival’s centerpiece. The audience voted this year’s winners and chose on Sunday, November 23 at the sold out Caligari FilmBühne 3 EXPERTEN DREHEN AUF by Volker Heymann as winner of the first price, which is endowed with € 3,000, donated once more by the state capital of Wiesbaden. Peter Baumann, director of BORDER PATROL came in second and could take € 2,000 home, sponsored by the Wiesbaden tv production company Magenta TV. Veronika Hafner made the third place with her film GRÜNERES GRAS. The check for € 1,000 was also handed over by the head of department of culture Rose-Lore Scholz. On top of that Pille film equipment rental gave a non-cash prize worth € 2,000 to PHALLOMETER by Tor Iben.
International Shortfilm Competition
The French production 37°4 S by Adriano Valerio won the International Shortfilm Competition and the cash prize of € 1,500 – sponsored by the circle of exground friends. In this year’s International Shortfilm Competition 19 films from 15 countries competed for the jury’s favour. The three person expert jury were Insa Wiese, festival director of the International Shortfilm Week Regensburg, successful shortfilm director Simon Ellis and Axel Behrens, co-founder of the Hamburg shortfilm agency. A special mention went to RABBITLAND by Serbian directors Ana Nedeljković and Nicola Majdak.