By Birthe Wenge
Raining awards for “Nothing New in the West”! The German World War II drama received a total of seven awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in London on Sunday, including Best Film and Best Director.
The award for the best non-English language film also went to director Edward Berger (53) and his team. Composer Volker Bertelmann (57) aka Hauschka was honored for his film music.
In his acceptance speech, Berger addressed his daughter Matilda, who read the novel by Erich-Maria Remarque († 72) at school and convinced him to make a new film out of it.
Berger’s film was nominated a total of 14 times, making it one of the foreign films with the most nominations in British film history.
Directed by German filmmaker Edward Berger and based on Remarque’s 1929 novel of the same name, Netflix’s anti-war epic won awards including Best Director, Sound and Original Music Photo: picture alliance/dpa/Netflix/PA Media
The Netflix production is a remake of Erich-Maria Remarque’s 1928 anti-war novel of the same name about the experiences of a young German soldier in World War I. There was already a US film adaptation. In the German version, the actor Felix Kammerer (27) plays the leading role.
That’s what it’s all about: Full of enthusiasm, young Paul volunteers for the military in 1917. He dreams of being there when Paris is taken. Arrived in the trenches, he has to realize that he is just cannon fodder.
After the Oscars and the Golden Globes, the Bafta Awards are among the most coveted awards in the industry. They have rarely been a harbinger of the Oscars, which will be awarded three weeks later in Los Angeles. The award ceremony in London’s Royal Festival Hall was moderated by British actor Richard E. Grant (65).
At the Golden Globes in Los Angeles on January 11, “All West” was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, but went away empty-handed.