“One Last Evening”, “The Village Next to Paradise”, Win First Look, A4D

Lukas Nathrath’s “One Last Evening,” an often harrowing, tragedy-ridden dramedy set around a couple’s farewell dinner for friends, won a major prize at First Look in Locarno on Sunday, winning the Cinegrell First Look Award.

The award consists of €50,000 ($51,000) post-production services from Cinegrell, a Swiss and Germany-based service company.

The top prize at this year’s Locarno Pro First Look, a pix-in-post showcase of six new films from Germany, went to a first feature film that offers a scathing portrait of a success-obsessed society whose members often don’t live up to their promises, especially in their own assessment.

Sebastian Jakob Doppelbauer plays Clemens, a once aspiring singer-songwriter but now a pitiful depressive whose girlfriend now makes his mark as a partner with a future as an aspiring doctor. Clemens, on the other hand, doesn’t give a fuck.

With a new beginning, the move from Hanover to Berlin, the couple stages a farewell dinner that gets out of control and uncovers hidden fears, secret longings and life lies.

After the pandemic, our feeling was, ‘Let’s shoot something this summer,'” Nasrath said diversity.

Nasrath, Doppelbauer and colleague Linus Günther from Klinkerfilm tried in vain for film money, but weren’t too unhappy about making the film with a minimum, as that way “no one would intervene,” they said after Sunday night’s awards ceremony.

“We were very impressed with One Last Evening and found the storytelling rich and nuanced. The film took us on a real emotional journey and the strong ensemble cast contributed to beautifully detailed characters,” said the First Look jury.

Written by Nathrath and Doppelbauer, One Last Evening was well received by a professional audience at First Look, which took place August 5-7.

The Le Film Français Award, consisting of advertising services worth 5,600 euros, went to “Arthur & Diana” by Sara Summa, produced by the German Film and Television Academy Berlin.

An alternative road movie in which the siblings Arthur and Diana, played by Summa and her brother, cross Europe from Berlin via France to South Tyrol. The film mixes a documentary edge and apparent fantasy, family dynamics, age angst and disillusionment, and some of that excitement that Arthur fondly remembers from his childhood days.

Milena Aboyan’s “Elaha”, an emancipation drama for a Kurdish bride set in modern-day Germany, chronicles the seemingly hourly struggle of Elaha (Bayan Layla), the 22-year-old daughter of a Kurdish family, for even a morsel of freedom. This battle is not fought against a hated enemy, but against the people she loves most: her own family.

Kinescope, which produced with Essence Films, is in talks with potential sales agents, the “Elaha” producer. said Janina Sara Hennemann at the award ceremony.

At Alliance 4 Development, Locarno Pro co-development platform for film projects from Austria, Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland, the Alphapanda Market Breakout Award went to “The Village Next to Paradise”. The award consists of €3,000 ($3,060) worth of consulting services.

Produced by Oliver Neumann (FreibeuterFilm, Austria) and Sabine Moser (FreibeuterFilm, Austria), the film project will be directed by Mo Harawe. It follows a Somali family and their daily struggles over the course of a summer.

Somalia-born Harawe, a highly respected short film director, plans to work with local amateur actors. “I want to be part of the growing but still very small film infrastructure in Somalia,” he said.