Liechti’s “Vaters Garten” wins Documentary Film Award

The renowned cineaste Peter Liechti (“The Sound Of Insects,” “Hans im Glück,” “Signers Koffer,” among others) has won yet another award for his latest work, following awards in Berlin, where the film celebrated its world premiere, as well as in Nyon and Linz: the Documentary Film Award of the Five Lakes Film Festival near Munich was presented this year ex aequo to “Vaters Garten – Die Liebe meiner Eltern” and the German documentary “Still” by Matti Bauer. The jury’s statement for the Documentary Film Award, endowed with EUR 3,000, was as follows: “… The two films are so very different, as only films can be, and nevertheless have one thing in common: they both tell of our roots and the process of becoming uprooted.”

Prescient requiem
The jury expressed deep respect and gratitude to Peter Liechti: “The director’s extraordinary, daring cinematic approach for his family portrait is intimate and yet transcends the personal. Nothing is glossed over, nor is anyone ridiculed. The story of two people who stand for values and convictions of a vanishing era, affected and alienated. ‘Vaters Garten’ is both: a personal examination of one’s own roots, as well as a prescient requiem of another age.”

“Clara und das Geheimnis der Bären”
The 7^th Five Lakes Film Festival, which took place on five lakes in Upper Bavaria from July 24 - August 4, 2013, presents six awards in various categories. The festival focuses on films from the region between the Danube and Adriatic Sea. Switzerland had an exceptionally strong presence at the festival this year with 19 films, including another multi-award-winning film: the Swiss-German coproduction “Clara und das Geheimnis der Bären” by Tobias Ineichen, which received a Special Mention from the Children’s Film Award jury.

Zurich, August 5, 2013