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Oscar contenders September 5 and The Seed of the Sacred Fig, and Andreas Dresen’s historic drama From Hilde, With Love are the frontrunners for this year’s German Film Awards, also called the Lolas, Germany’s equivalent of the Oscars.

September 5, Tim Fehlbaum’s real-life thriller based on the terrorist attacks on the 1972 Munich Olympics, picked up 10 nominations, including for best film and best director, as well as a supporting actress nom for Leonie Benesch, who plays a translator for the U.S. television network broadcasting the attacks live to the world.

Second and third in the running are Dresen’s From Hilde, With Love, which picked up seven Lola nominations, including for best film and best director, with Mohammad Rasoulof’s Iranian drama The Seed of the Sacred Fig right behind with six.

Rasoulof’s depiction of an Iranian family torn apart by conflicting loyalties to an increasingly oppressive Tehran regime,...

Exclusive: StudioCanal to handle world sales on Kai Wessel’s wartime drama.

StudioCanal is to handle international sales on Kai Wessel’s Fog In August (Nebel im August), the first feature film to address the Nazis’ euthanasia programme.

Based on Robert Domes’ 2008 eponymous historical novel, Fog In August centres on the authentic life story of 13-year-old Ernst Lossa who was committed to a mental hospital in Sargau in 1942 because of his origins in a family of travellers.

However, Ernst soon discovered the truth behind the hospital’s facade and sabotaged its euthanasia programme to help his new-found friends. But his actions did not go unnoticed by the institution’s administration.

The role of Ernst is played by the young Berliner Ivo Pietzcker who played the central character in Edward Berger’s Berlinale 2014 competition film Jack, which won a German Film Award last month.

The hospital’s staunch Nazi chief physician Werner Veithausen is played by Sebastian Koch who came...

Berlin -- Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" may have missed out on the best foreign film Oscar but the Austrian filmmaker is all but certain to sweep the German Film Awards after "The White Ribbon" received 13 nominations for the country's top prize, the Lolas.

"The White Ribbon" picked up Lola noms in all possible categories, including best film, best director and best acting noms for stars Burghart Klaussner and Susanne Lothar.

Cinematographer Christian Berger, whose stark black-and-white images earned him an Oscar nomination, is the favurite to win the Lola for best cinematography at the German Film Awards on April 23 in Berlin.

"When We Leave," a drama from first-time director Feo Aladag, was the big surprise, earning six Lola nominations including ones for best film and best actress for Sibel Kekilli ("Head-On") in her comeback role as a young woman banished from her devout Muslim family.

Hans-Christian Schmid's...

'Happy Ever Afters', the debut feature film from writer and director Stephen Burke (Anner House, No Tears) comes down the aisle on December 26th with the premise that sometimes the happiest day of all can be the most heartbreaking. Iftn chats to Burke and two of the film's stars Tom Riley and Jade Yourell. The film's plot is anything but straightforward: Freddie, played by Tom Riley (Lost in Austen, St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold) and Maura, played by Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky, An Education) are getting married, just not to each other. While Freddie is entering his second marriage with the neurotic Sophie, played by Jade Yourell (Waiting for Dublin, The Longest Day), Maura's is more concerned with her pockets than her heart in marrying 'Doctors' star, Ariyon Bakare's Wilson. Then, when the two wedding parties end up at the same reception venue,...

Cologne, Germany -- Classic storytelling won out over experimentation at this year's TV festival cum media confab the Cologne Conference, with ITV's detective series "Above Suspicion" taking the event's top honor, the TV Spielfilm Prize.

Starring Kelly Reilly as a stiletto-heel-wearing police detective, "Above Suspicion" is familiar ground for writer-producer Lynda La Plante, creator of the hit "Prime Suspect" series, who accepted the prize at the closing ceremony Saturday night.

The Hollywood Reporter Award, a prize for up-and-coming German producers showing international potential, went to Max Wiedemann and Quirin Berg, whose flair for Hollywood-style filmmaking is evident not only in their Oscar-winning feature "The Lives of Others" but also in local TV events such as "The Inferno" and "Factor 8" for German channel Pro7.

The 2009 German Casting Prize went to Nina Haun, casting director for local production giant Ufa Film & TV, whose recent work includes the casting of Berlinale Silver Bear...

More Cannes coverage

Cannes -- Berlin-based production house Egoli Tossell is joining with France's Bac Films and Warner Bros. Entertainment GmbH in Germany for a series of films based on the best-selling "Hector's Journey" novels by Francois Lelord.

The books follow Hector, a psychiatrist who travels the world in search of what it is that makes people happy.

"These will be the ultimate feel-good movies," Egoli Tossell president Jens Meurer said.

The first three "Hector" novels, soon to be published in English, are huge international best-sellers in Europe and Asia.

Egoli Tossell, Warners in Germany and Bac subsidiary Manny Films will co-produce the films, budgeted at €11 million ($14 million) apiece. Principle photography on the first entry, "Hector's Journey or the Search for Happiness" is set to begin in January, with shooting planned in China, Southeast Asia, South Africa, Germany and California.

Warners likely will release the films in German-speaking Europe through...

Cannes -- German actress Monica Bleibtreu, mother of star Moritz Bleibtreu ("The Baader Meinhof Complex") and an accomplished performer in her own right, has died of cancer. She was 65.

Bleibtreu has been a fixture on German television for decades but success on the big screen came rather late in life. Her breakthrough performance was as Traude, the curmudgeonly piano teacher in Chris Kraus' "4 Minutes," a role that won her a German Film Award for best actress in 2006.

Other notable films include Nicolette Krebitz's "The Heart Is a Dark Forest," children's film "Max Minsky and Me" and Kai Wessel's Hildegard Knef biopic "Hilde," which premiered at the Berlinale in February.

Bliebtreu's last onscreen performance alongside Julia Jentsch in Bettina Oberli's upcoming crime drama "The Murder Farm." She was to star in Hans Steinbichler's new film "Das Blaue vom Himmel," a role that will now have to be recast.

Cologne, Germany -- "If you have the titles, they will come" proved the motto for German sales group Beta Cinema, which locked up several deals for its slate out of last week's European Film Market.

Florian Gallenberger's well-received 1930s epic "John Rabe" sold to Spain and Italy, picked up a free TV deal with Austria and generated serious interest from U.S. buyers, Beta said.

Phillipp Stoltzl's rock-climbing drama "North Face" was picked up by distributors in France, Japan, Scandinavia, Benelux, Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China while another German biopic, Kai Wessel's "Hilde," starring Heike Makatsch as legendary actress-singer Hildegard Knef, also closed for Benelux.

Other strong sellers for Beta include Robert Dornhelm's opera film "La Boheme" with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon, which is set to close for Spain after already inking with Filmladen in Japan. Beta also signed a Spanish deal for upcoming children's...

Berlin -- Move over, Pink Panther. Here come the Black Panthers.

Two English-language European film projects aim to bring leading figures from the U.S. Black Power movement to the big screen soon.

Franco-Algerian producer-writer-director Rachid Bouchareb, whose film "London River" screens here in competition, is setting up a movie on the early life of Angela Davis, a leading figure of the civil rights movement and one-time FBI renegade.

Meanwhile, Berlin-based Egoli Tossell films, whose latest picture, "Hilde," screens here as a Berlinale Special Gala, is in preproduction on a feature film based on Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale.

Davis, who once studied here at Berlin's Humboldt University, became a cause celebre in the late 1960s when she was sacked from her post as philosophy professor at UCLA for being a communist. She later found herself on the FBI's "10 most wanted" list after guns used in a...

Berlin -- 2008 was a banner year for German films, with local productions taking a 26.6% share of the 129 million tickets sold in the territory.

Til Schweiger's romantic comedy "Rabbit Without Ears" was the No. 1 German title, selling 4.9 million tickets -- enough to beat out Hollywood competition "Madagascar 2" (4.8 million) and "Quantum of Solace" (4.7 million).

But there were homegrown success stories across the spectrum – from the British-German documentary "Planet Earth," which sold 3.8 million tickets here, to Uli Edel's Oscar-nominated terrorist drama "The Baader Meinhof Complex" (2.4 million).

Total admissions in Germany last year were up 4 million to 129.4 million and boxoffice revenue jumped 5% to 795 million euros ($1 billion).

German titles will enjoy home field advantage at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival. The Berlinale opens today with U.S.-German co-production "The International" from Tom Tykwer and there are dozens of high-profile German productions in this year's lineup, including Florian Gallenberger's "John Rabe,...

Berlin -- Richard Loncraine's "My One and Only," a '50s-era comedy starring Renee Zellweger and Kevin Bacon, was squeezed into the competition lineup for this year's Berlin International Film Festival, barely a week before the event kicks off.

Zellweger plays a glamorous single mom on the hunt for a rich man to foot the bill for her and her sons' lifestyle. Produced by Merv Griffith Entertainment and Ray Gun Prods., "My One and Only" will have its world premiere in Berlin. Essential Entertainment is handling international sales.

Berlin also added Lone Scherfig's Sundance favorite "An Education" with Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson and Davis Guggenheim's music documentary "It Might Get Loud" for its Berlinale Special Galas, ensuring the films will get the red carpet treatment without any of the pressure of competition.

All three films should give an added boost of star power to...

Berlin -- Florian Gallenberger's World War II biopic "John Rabe," Paul Schrader's Jeff Goldblum starrer "Adam Resurrected" and Hermine Huntegeburth's adaptation of German classic "Effi Briest" are among the highlights of this year's Berlinale Special program.

Other titles that will get the red carpet gala treatment, minus the pressure of having to compete for the Golden Bear, include "Hilde," Kai Wessel's biography of legendary singer/actess Hildegard Knef; Claude Chabrol's "Bellamy," featuring Gerard Depardieu; and Christiana Yao's "Empire of Silver," with Aaron Kwok, Tie Lin Zhang and Hao Lei.

Four documentaries with get the full Specials treatment: James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo's "Every Little Step," "In Berlin" from Oscar-winning cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and Ciro Cappellari, "Food, Inc." by Robert Kenner and "Terra Madre" from Italian director Ermanno Olmi. The last two also swillcreen as part of Berlin's Culinary Cinema section.

The 59th Berlinale runs Feb.