22 – 27 October 2019 Press release 9 Award of the City of Hof 2019 goes to actor Max Riemelt Hof, 24 October 2019 – This year's Award of the City of Hof 2019 goes to the actor Max Riemelt. By awarding the prize to Max Riemelt this year, the City of Hof and the Hof International Film Festival are honoring an outstanding actor who fills his roles with wisdom, intensity and subtle emotion. Many of his films premiered at the Hof International Film Festival and became great successes: Riemelt was in Hof for the first time in 2004 with NAPOLA by Dennis Gansel, followed by 13 SEMESTERS by Frieder Wittich in 2009, PLAYOFF by Eran Riklis in 2011, MY GERMAN FRIEND by Jeannine Meerapfel in 2012, and TO LIFE! by Uwe Janson in 2014. In 2018 Max Riemelt came to the festival on the occasion of the retrospective of the French director Barbet Schroeder and presented the film AMNESIA, in which he played the leading role alongside Marthe Keller. The unendowed Award of the City of Hof is regarded as one of the special awards in the German film industry. Since 1986, the Award of the City of Hof has been awarded to a personality who is an important driving force in the German film industry and is closely associated with the film festival in the Saalestadt. This is particularly true of Max Riemelt: Max Riemelt, born 1984 in Berlin, has been working as an actor since 1997. He celebrated his breakthrough with the leading role in the series ZWEI ALLEIN (1998). The coming-of-age comedy GIRLS ON TOP (2001) marked the beginning of a successful collaboration with the director Dennis Gansel, followed by the feature films NAPOLA (2004; Best Actor Award, Karlovy Vary), THE WAVE (2008; Undine Award Best Actor Award), WE ARE THE NIGHT (2010) and THE FOURTH STATE (2012). In 2005 Riemelt was named as the German Shooting Star by the European Film Promotion at the Berlinale. Riemelt also worked with Dominik Graf on several occasions - first as the lead actor in the feature film THE RED COCKATOO (2005; Bavarian Film Award as Best Young Actor, Best Actor at the International Film Festival Marrakech), then in the much acclaimed TV series IN THE FACE OF CRIME (2010; German Television Award for the Actors' Ensemble; Grimme Award as one of four award-winning actors). In addition to other leading roles (13 SEMESTERS, PARTLY SUNNY, MY GERMAN FRIEND), Riemelt was seen in main roles in various TV productions roles during this time. In 2013 he celebrated a great success in the gay love drama FREE FALL (3rd Günther Rohrbach Film Prize) alongside Hanno Koffler - with whom he had already played in HALLESCHE KOMETEN by Susanne Irina Zacharias (2005) and the TV drama AUSLANDSEINSATZ by Till Endemann (2012). International cinema roles followed, for which Riemelt worked with Barbet Schroeder (AMNESIA, 2014) and Cate Shortland (BERLIN SYNDROME, 2015), among others. In 2015, the Wachowski siblings cast him in their Netflix series SENSE8 (2014-17), and in 2018 he took on a role in the BBC series WORLD ON FIRE. Max Riemelt is currently shooting the children's film THE PEPPERCORNS AND THE TREASURE OF THE DEEP SEA and will soon be seen in a Tatort episode directed by FREE FALL director Stephan Lacant (DIE ZEIT IST GEKOMMEN, 2019). German Cinema New Talent Award 2019 goes to the film COUP The German Cinema New Talent Award for Best Film goes to COUP, the feature debut by Sven O. Hill. Jury statement: Imagine Martin Scorsese and Guy Ritchie making a movie without money. In the north of Hamburg. There are indeed some people who are just smarter than everyone else. This film is about exactly such a person. A person who has everything. He has the freedom of a rocker, the secure job of a banker and a happy family. But he has something else: a dream. To rob a bank! And because he's smarter than everyone else, he just does it. Entertainingly absurd, the film takes us into the unique, true story of a modest con man. Despite its small budget, this antihero journey takes us all the way to Australia and back. This story of a likeable bank robber is told in a courageous mix of three different genres. In its innovative blend of documentary, animation, and feature film, the film takes the liberties to break new ground, something we would like to see more often in New German Cinema. Like its protagonist, the film cleverly uses its small means to create something big. The German Cinema New Talent Award goes to Sven O. Hill for his COUP. About the film: Summer 1988: A 22-year-old bank employee, family man, and rocker embezzles millions from his bank. Not with a pistol and “hands up”, but rather by discovering a security hole and using an ingenious COUP to move the loot aside, and clears off with the money to Australia. Only from there on the phone does he tell his girlfriend about it. But she doesn’t want to follow. He didn’t expect that. His refuge in an Australian luxury hotel is similar to that in a golden cage, the growing longing for their little son becomes immense. His girlfriend gives him the choice: come back to a despised average life, but to his beloved son, or live the dissipated life of a millionaire, without his son. "I stole the money for you! For us! What do I do now?" Sven O. Hill was born in Düsseldorf in 1975. After post-graduate studies in Cinematography, he began Film Studies at the renowned film school FAMU in Prague. He made several short feature films and music clips. He works as a director, producer and cinematographer. COUP is his first feature-length film. The jury: Franziska Weisz (actress), Tini Tüllmann (director and screenwriter) and Max Gleschinski (director, winner of the German Cinema New Talent Award 2018 at the Hof International Film Festival for KAHLSCHLAG) Ana Radica Hof International Film Festival Press Tel. 0160 800 35 50 [email protected] www.hofer-filmtage.com/ https://de-de.facebook.com/hoferfilmtage/ https://www.instagram.com/hoferfilmtage/?hl=de .