Cologne Conference
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The Cologne Conference is an international TV and Film Festival that takes place annually in Cologne, Germany.
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[edit] Profile
With approximately 6.000 visitors per year, the festival is known to be among worldwide’s best visited TV festivals. It is as much devoted to the trendsetting medium TV as to new media languages and market trends in advertising, internet, film and mobile entertainment. Next to the public festival screenings of independent films and international television productions as German premieres, the Cologne Conference presents workshops, lectures and works series with some of the world’s top media minds to outline the core global industry trends as well as their impact on the German market. The most recent Cologne Conference featured lectures by among others Academy Award winner Paul Haggis (writer/director “The Black Donnellys”, “Crash”) and Lee Goldberg (writer/director “Monk”). Hence, the leading US magazine for the industry, Variety, is not alone in considering the Cologne Conference a "gateway to Europe’s most dynamic TV market".
[edit] History
The Cologne Conference was founded in 1991 as a part of German media convention mediaforum nrw; it soon developed a momentum of its own and an international reputation. Additionally to the regular festival programme of TV movies, TV series, documentaries, entertainment formats and feature films, retrospectives pay homage to unique TV or film personalities and cult programmes, like Lalo Schifrin (film music composer) or “The Monkeys”, “The Prisoner” and “Little Britain”. In 2007, the Cologne Conference became independent, taking place closer in time with major events in Cologne focusing on audiovisual content and entertainment, such as the Deutsche Fernsehpreis and Köln Comedy Film Festival. The Cologne Conference 2008 will take place from October, 08th to 13th in the central inner city of Cologne, with venues at the Cinedom, Filmhaus, and Filmpalette theaters, and in the MediaPark tower.
[edit] Programme and Guests
One of the first TV productions presented at the Cologne Conference was David Lynch’s mystery series “Twin Peaks”. Later almost all groundbreaking US TV series had their German premiere at the Cologne Conference, e.g. “Emergency Room”, “Sex and the City” or “24”. Also British television always enjoyed strong presence, for instance with “Cracker”, “The Office” or “Prime Suspect”. Next to stars from the German film and television scene, international celebrities such as Academy Award winners Paul Haggis, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and Michael Radford, Anton Corbijn, Nicholas Roeg, D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, Mika Kaurismäki and Ole Bornedal presented themselves in Cologne.
[edit] Competition and Awards
From round about 800 international submissions a jury selects the programmes for the top festival sections. Both fictional and non-fictional programmes are combined in a Top Ten; programmes and formats that focus explicitly on aesthetic developments across different media are screened in the Look section.
Since 1997, the Cologne Conference awards prizes in different categories: - The Cologne Film Award for an outstanding creative in film and TV who “best contributes to the further development of the language of film and media”, presented by the Cologne Conference, along with the City of Cologne and States Film Subsidy Body “Filmstiftung NRW”, worth EUR 25.000 - The Hollywood Reporter Award, sponsored by The Nielsen Company, goes to the best new television format, of German or international origin, introduced within the last year to the German market, worth EUR 10.000. - The Network Movie Star, a Young Talent Award for the best new author, director or actor of the year, sponsored by German production company Network Movie, worth EUR 10.000.
In the previous years, the following awards existed:
- TV Spielfilm Award, donated by the German TV programme magazine of the same name
- The Award for the Best Documentary, for a long time sponsored by the German TV broadcaster Phoenix, in 2006 by the Cologne-based production company AZ Media
- The Award for the Best Screenplay, sponsored by Network Movie (in 2006 bestowed on Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who in 2007 won an Oscar for “The Lives of Others”)
- The Casting-Award
[edit] Laureates 2007
- Cologne Film Award: Paul Haggis (“The Black Donnellys”)
- TV Spielfilm Award: Anton Corbijn for “Control: The Ian Curtis Film”
- Best Screenplay Award : Hannah Hollinger
- The Hollywood Reporter Award: “Das perfekte Dinner” (German adaptation of “Come Dine With Me”)
[edit] Chair
The 2007 Chair of the Cologne Conference was composed by festival founder Lutz Hachmeister, along with Maybrit Illner, Stefan Aust, Marc Conrad, Michael Schmid-Ospach and Dieter Gorny.
In 2008 the Cologne Conference will take place October 8 - 13.
