Ahead of the 7th edition of the 'Lëtzebuerger Filmpräis' taking place on 5 March 2016, representatives of Film Fund Luxembourg and d'Filmakademie gathered Monday at Maison de Cassal to officially present this annual event which seeks to celebrate Luxembourgish cinema.
Luxembourg producers were invited to submit their works until 31 October 2015, with the nominations for the Filmpräis 2016 first announced in mid-December 2015. Overall, 9 short fiction films, 16 co-productions, 4 Luxembourg feature films, 9 documentaries, 3 feature films and 3 animated short films will each be hoping to receive the Filmpräis statuette, a facial profile outline created by Luxembourgish artist Patricia Lippert after she won the right to design the trophy in a 2003 competition. 30 film production professionals have been shortlisted for the award for Best Artistic Contribution and Best Technical Contribution.
The awards ceremony will be taking place on Saturday 5 March 2016 at the Grand Théâtre in Luxembourg City, bringing together writer, actor and director Claude Frisoni and actress Eugénie Anselin as co-hosts. As in the previous edition, the awards will be presented by members of the 'Filmakademie', comprised of 430 figures within the audiovisual production sector and presided over by Claude Waringo.
Guy Daleiden, Director of Film Fund Luxembourg, welcomed that fact that "the Lëtzebuerger Filmpräis has become a meeting place for the sector" and praised its "close link with the Luxembourg City Film Festival which, for its 6th edition, selected in competition 3 films made in/with Luxembourg: 'La Supplication' by Pol Cruchten (Red Lion) and 'Eldorado' by Rui Eduardo Abreu, Thierry Besseling and Loïc Tanson (Samsa Film) and a co-production 'Sunset Song' by Terence Davies (Iris Productions)".
"Given the large number of technicians and artists registered for the Award for Best Technical Contribution and the Award for Best Artistic Contribution, we decided to conduct a pre-selection through a committee to simplify the choice of voters; this was also the case for short films," explained Claude Waringo.
The final nominees have been voted for by the 430 industry professionals and d'Filmakademie members, who are able to vote via the www.vodfilmprais.lu online platform and, as a new feature for this year, watch the films in the running for a Lëtzebuerger Filmpräis 2016.
Photo by Sarah Graham (L-R: Guy Daleiden, Director of Film Fund Luxembourg and Claude Waringo, Director of d'Filmakademie, with the Filmpräis trophy)
