DAE Talent Award

The award offers a 100% discount on the first year of DAE memberships for the director and producer of one project valued at 200 € as well as tailored mentoring sessions with the DAE team or senior consultants. This prize is a talent development encouragement award.

Award winners 2022: I LOOK LIKE MY MOTHER by Amina Maher (director), Lorena Junghans, Fabian Altenried und Sophie Ahrens (producers)

In search of the creation of an autonomous body, Amina Maher, a trans woman director, retraces the trauma buried within the relationship she has with her mother, as she reveals her unspoken desires in a process of honest self-exploration.

PADALA JE KISA I ONDA SE SETIM DA JE BILA OGNJENA MARIJA / IT WAS RAINING AND THEN I REMEMBERED IT WAS THE DAY OF FIERY MARY by Branislav Jankic (director) and Jelena Angelovski (production)

In addition, the project IT WAS RAINING AND THEN I REMEMBERED IT WAS THE DAY OF FIERY MARY received a 100% discount on the first year of DAE memberships for Branislav Jankic and Jelena Angelovski.

Footage of my mother before her death in a Munich apartment. A play of costumes matching my wife and daughter to photographs of my young mother. Through physical transformation, recollections of war, borders, rape, abuse, poverty and love come alive. A maelstrom of identity, an unforgettable impression of Balkan womanhood.

Award winners 2021: 8 TO 18 by Cosima Frei, production: Nadine Lüchinger 

Over a period of ten years we are acompanying a family with two sons. At birth, gender and identity are coherent for one of the sons, while the other is mistaken for a girl because of his feminine physical features. 8 TO 18 is a film about acceptance in the family and society, but above all about how one can accept and develop oneself, even if this means breaking down social norms.

Award winners 2020: AMALIE'S SHADOW by Esther Niemeier, Dirk Decker, production: Andrea Schütte, Dirk Decker

Amalie, the great-grandmother of director Esther Niemeier, was killed by the Nazis in a psychiatric hospital in 1941. Whether she was indeed mentally ill is uncertain. Her ex-husband had her committed after she divorced him. A woman with a mind of her own had to be crazy after all. Esther sets out on a cinematic quest for evidence.