Best Cinematography (Felix Striegel in „Catafalque“)

With great elegance - neither empty nor merely aesthetic - the gaze of the camera lets the viewer see the apparently intact (yet soon to be cracked and shaken) surface of a world, only to let them comprehend the horror of a children’s cave by breaking into the depths and siding with darkness and suffering. To this effect, Felix Striegel does not shy away from the extreme play of light and shadow, and is not turned away from the brave stare into darkness or the minimalism of an almost black image, on the outer edge of which light from the cellar steps flows like quicksilver. When the terror reaches a climax in death at the end, the camera fixes its gaze on a turning, broken clock, so that the space turns around it as a central point, such that the world unites with the clock and the traces of the crime, which are perceivable in the blurry periphery, receive a removed and yet intense presence, as only unforgettable images of its kind can have.

back to winner films 2010