Diagonal 2022 – Ulrich Seidl’s “Rimini” wins Best Feature Film

“Rimini” by Ulrich Seidl – most recently in Interview with “Wiener Zeitung” Honored as Best Feature Film at Grazer Diagonale on Sunday. The award for Best Documentary Film went to Sabine Derfliner “Alice Schwarzer”. Each of the two main prizes is worth 19,000 euros. The acting awards for best performance by an Austrian actress and actor in a competition movie went to Julia Windsbauer for “Para: dies” and George Friedrich for “Große Freiheit”.

For Rimini, Viennese filmmaker Seidl created the character of ramshackle pop singer Richie Bravo, as Michael Thomas stars. As an introduction and connection to a father’s mirror presence in an Austrian nursing home, the mother’s funeral was in the Burgenland wasteland of Parndorf in the early winter of Rimini.

In Alice Schwarzer’s conversations with the now 79-year-old Schwarzer, she serves as a common thread for assembling flashbacks, TV excerpts and reflections on the person Alice Schwarzer by her fellow activists such as philosopher Elizabeth Badinter or his wife Bettina Flettner.

“CERAL / Soy Claudia, soy Esther y soy Teresa. Soy Ingrid, soy Fabiola y soy Valeria” by Anna Spanlang was selected as the best original, experimental or animated film. There are 8500 euros for this. Valentin Stejskal won the Diagonale Award for Best Short Film for “5pm Seaside” (€8,500). The film “Augusts Orte” by Valérie Pelet won the award for best short documentary (6000 euros). The best small film (5500 euros) was “Everything is Gone” by Jean Brazac.

Joanna Screenzi (“The Great Freedom”) received 3,000 euros for the best feature film for artistic montage, and Dieter Bechler (“For the Many”) won the documentary part. Christel Fournier (“The Great Freedom”) won Best Picture Design for a Feature Film, while Judith Benedict, Thomas Voorhapter and Clemence Kocher (“Living Together”) took home awards in the Documentary category. Manuel Grandpierre also received the Best Sound Design award of €3,000 for the feature film (“Luzifer”) and Andreas Hamza (“For the Many”) for the documentary.

The prize for best production design (€3,000) went to Oleg Prodeus, Andreas Sobotka and Martin Reiter for “Hinterland”. Tanja Hausner (“Rimini”) received the Best Costume Design award. The Exceptional Production Achievement Award was shared and in accordance with justice went to FreibeuterFilm for “Hinterland” and “Große Freiheit” and WILDart FILM for “WOOD – Der geraubte Wald”. (Abba)