At the 51st Worldfest Houston International Film Festival, which is older than the Sundance, Tribeca or South X Southwest festivals, our producer Wolfgang Ritzberger received a Platinum Remi for the BEST FEATURE FILM, and the Golden Remi for Verena Altenberger for BEST ACTRESS at a very classy award-gala (Black Tie!), handed over by founder and chairman Hunter Todd.

At the same time as the festival in Houston also the Richmond International Film & Music Festival Awards were received; again The Best of All Worlds was awarded BEST FEATURE FILM and Jeremy Miliker received the RISING STAR AWARD.

Around the same time we received two more main awards for the BEST FEATURE FILM, one at the Emerge Film Festival in Maine, the other at the Hill Country Film Festival in Fredericksburg, Texas.

During the Q&A at the Newport Beach Film Festival in California the audience wildly applauded the film but was also amazed by the really incredible number of awards it has received. The highlight of the great feedback was receiving the Festival Honors Award for BEST FOREIGN FILM.

13th Annual Harlem International Film Festival in New York – our most recent award.  Producer Wolfgang Ritzberger had the honour to pick up the main awards:  BEST FILM and BEST ACTRESS in Verena Altenberger’s name.

We are very very happy about this great feedback in the U.S. and very grateful for all the amazing awards!!

We are looking forward to all the upcoming U.S. film festivals showing our film in the next months. Some already nominated our film for more awards. Here an overview over all the upcoming U.S. festivals where we will be represented:

NYC Independent Film Festival, U.S. (May 7 – 13)

Nashville Film Festival, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. (May 10 – 19)

Nepal America International Film Festival, Hyattsville, Maryland, U.S. (May 18 – 20. Mai)

New Jersey International Film Festival, U.S. (June 1 – 10)

Albuquerque Film & Music Experience, Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. (June 4 – 10)

Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema (KGFC), New York, U.S. (August 3 – 12.)

This was the ROMY 2018!

Also in Austria incredible highlights occurred meanwhile: Two Golden ROMYs! Almost one month later, but still as vivid to us:

BEST FEATURE FILM

BEST YOUNG ACTOR – Jeremy Miliker

We honestly didn’t even dream about another prestigious Austrian award after the Austrian Film Academy Awards. We knew that Verena Altenberger  was nominated for a GOLDEN ROMY but it’s well-known that those actresses receive most of the votes who are known from TV series and are popular with the audience, the ROMY being an audience award. Therefore the nomination in the so-called academy category was a real surprise. That we would leave the big ROMY Gala in the Academy Awards Category with two GOLDEN ROMYS took us by surprise. The first one who was excitedly awaiting the awards was our little superstar Jeremy Miliker, nominated for Best Young Actor. After the almost endlessly long silence which followed after the opening of the envelope, his name was read aloud, he breathed out and said “yes”, ran up towards the stage and was the youngest award winner to collect his GOLDEN ROMY. His acceptance speech won him the hearts of the audience, because he didn’t even forget to thank his school director and the class room teacher, where he could be the “normal” Jeremy and enjoy the community of his classmates. Insiders took note that he hardly could see over the speaker’s desk but that he calmly turned lower both microphones – a real pro. The second GOLDEN ROMY we received for Best Feature Film.

The wonderful Verena Altenberger unfortunately had to go home without an Audience-ROMY for BEST ACTRESS, but the BEST FEATURE FILM AWARD is as much her achievement as of many colleagues who each contributed to the successful film. We use this opportunity to express our gratefulness to ALL one more time.

Looking back – what happened until now:

The Best of All Worlds movie’s almost magical tour

By now we are already looking back on a long list of festivals we visited, numerous nominations and awards we received for which we are very grateful. This incredible tour has started last year with the 67th Berlinale, where we celebrated the world premiere. Director Adrian Goiginger was awarded the Kompass Perspektive Award. Verena Altenberger as usual made “bella figura” on the red carpet – during those days the first season of “Magda macht das schon” was broadcasted on German TV.

(Pictures below: a real compass as an award/ Adrian Goiginger and Verena Altenberger with the compass award/Linda Söfke – Director of the Perspektive Deutscher Film Section- Verena Altenberger, Jeremy Miliker and Adrian Goiginger after the Berlin premiere /red carpet for Verena/Anne Laurent (Austrian Film Commission), Roland Teichmann (Austrian Film Institute), Martin Schweighofer (Austrian Film Commission)/our DoPs Yoshi Heimrath and Paul Sprinz with agent Sandra Schuppach/Wolfgang Ritzberger and Brigitte Dithard (SWR);

67th Berlinale 2017

Diagonale 2017

Next stop was the Diagonale in Graz, where our movie was shown in Austria for the first time – we were a bit nervous, because we saw the Austrian audience as the acid test.

The result was even better – much applause after the screenings and our film was the “most popular film at the Diagonale”, which is officially called the Audience Award for the most popular film. Verena Altenberger received the Diagonale award Best Actress and Veronika Merlin the Best Production Design award.

(Pictures below: our film posters all over Graz/”family get-away” in Graz: left: Claudia and Marcel Miliker, centre: the “real” Gunter Goiginger next to Lukas Miko/Adrian Goiginger, DoP Paul Sprinz and Ingrid Koller, our master cutter/again Gunter Goiginger with Lukas Miko/Adrian and Gunter Goiginger with Jeremy and Verena/Diagonale Director Sebastian Höglinger with Verena Altenberger and Michael Pink)

39th Moscow International Film Festival

Our first international appearance outside Germany and Austria took place at the 39th Moscow International Film Festival. Our Film was in competition with 12 other feature films. The jury, chaired by the Italian actress Ornella Muti, again awarded Verena Altenberger for Best Actress. In September during the sold-out premiere at the Gartenbaukino, producer Wolfgang Ritzberger handed over the splendidly crafted statue.

(pics below: the award from Moscow – the statue of St. George/Wolfgang Ritzberger handed over the award from Moscow to Verena Altenberger – centre Tim Scheidig, Make-up)

           Photo: Manfred Werner (Tsui)

Film release in Austria in September 2017

The movie premiere – after really amazing pre-screenings all over Austria – took place in the sold-out Gartenbaukino in Vienna. Back then nobody, absolutely nobody could have foreseen that the film will still be shown in the cinemas after 34 weeks: Almost 92,000 moviegoers have seen it. The Best of All Worlds managed to succeed in both categories; it is popular with the audience and received many festival awards. At this point we would like to thank all the cinemas, the festivals, the distributor, the festivals’ juries and our audience.

Only one can claim that he knew it all along –  producer Wolfgang Ritzberger –  in his ÖFI application for financing the movie production he gave the figure “50k to 100k” as expected movie goers.

SCREENSHOT Application (February 2015)

First Steps Award 2017

A special event and much honor meant the FIRST STEPS Award to us, the German newcomer award, awarded by the German Film Academy. Adrian Goiginger received the award in the main category Best Feature Film.  It was a really nail-biting affair because we were seated in the centre of Berlin’s Theatre of the West and were convinced that we wouldn’t win anything. But only until actress Meret Becker (known from the movie “Die Aufschneider”) announced the winner.

Photo: Jirka Jansch

Rome Film Festival “Alice nella cittá” 2017

The next big festival was in Rome, where our movie was shown in the section “Alice nella cittá” and awarded BEST FEATURE FILM. We are very excited about our first Italian award.

39th Bavarian Film Awards 2018

At the end of last year our producer received a rather secretive call. They are looking for Mr. Goiginger and would like to contact him however they aren’t allowed to tell us more. Even though the call clearly didn’t come from the Bavarian State Criminal Police but the Bavarian State Government, we were eager to find out what it’s all about. The secret was unveiled after Christmas: At the 39th Bavarian Film Award Adrian Goiginger was awarded Best Newcomers Director and Verena Altenberger Best Newcomers Actress. Jeremy Miliker was the surprise guest and handed the award to Verena.

Austrian Film Academy Award 2018

A real high-light for us was of course the Austrian Film Award, which is awarded by the Austrian Film Academy according to the same rules as the Oscars in the U.S.  All members of the Academy have the right to cast a vote; with nine nominations (Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, 2x Best Supporting Actor, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Best Film Editing) we were among the favorites. Also Barbara Alberts’s Film “Light” and Monika Willis’s Hommage to Michael Glawogger “Untitled” had received several nominations. The splendid Gala ceremony in Grafenegg ended with 5 awards in the main categories for our film, the media called it the evening`s big trophy collector: Best Film for the producers, Adrian Goiginger was awarded Best Director and Best Screenplay, Verena Altenberger Best Actress and Lukas Miko Best Supporting Actor. Sadly Ingrid Koller (Film Editing), Monika Gebauer (Costume Design), Tim Scheidig (Makeup) and Michael Pink (Supporting Actor) went home empty handed this evening.

Photo © Pamela Rußmann

Photo © Manfred Werner (Tsui)

NYC Winter Film Awards Festival 2018

The U.S. tour and the shower of awards started in New York, at the Winter Film Awards. Snow and ice in the streets are the expected weather in February in NYC, but this year saw a very mild February with spring-like temperatures and a “hot” festival, where Adrian was again awarded Best Director. Jeremy Miliker received his first award – Best Actor – and succeeded against several not utterly unknown U.S. actors.

Film Festival of Boston 2018

Next stop after NYC was Boston, the city of the tea-party, MIT and Havard University, famous Red Socks and the home town of the Kennedy family and the actors Matt Deamon, Ben Afleck and Leonard Nimoy. Also the Global Film Festival Boston awarded Adrian Best Director.

2nd Indian World Film Festival 2018

At the same time producer Wolfgang Ritzberger was in the U.S. the film was also shown at the World Film Festival where we were received three awards – first time in Asia: Best Director (Adrian Goiginger), Best Actor (Jeremy Miliker) and for the first time Best Cinematographer (Yoshi Heimrath, Paul Sprinz).

5th Torino Underground Festival 2018

Shortly after that, while producer Wolfgang Ritzberger received the award for his innovative performance as a producer, another award followed from Italy: The Underground Cinefest Turin Best Film and the Best Sound awards…

Meraki Film Festival Madrid 2018

… and at the Meraki Film Festival in Madrid 4 awards in the main categories:

BEST FEATURE FILM
BEST DIRECTOR – Adrian Goiginger
BEST ACTRESS – Verena Altenberger
BEST PROMISING ACTOR – Jeremy Miliker

The fantastic winter tour –

Festivals and awards in a detailed overview:

67th Berlinale 2017: Kompass Perspektive Award – Adrian Goiginger

Vienna Film Award 2017: Young Director Award – Adrian Goiginger

Diagonale 2017: Audience Award

Best Actress – Verena Altenberger

Best Production Design

27th Filmkunstfest M-V 2017 in Schwerin:

Audience Award

Best Director – Adrian Goiginger

39th Moscow International Film Festival: Best Actress – Verena Altenberger

29th Heimatfilmfestival in Freistadt: Youth Jury Award

13th Ahrenshooper Film Festival:

Audience Award

Main Award: Best Feature Film

FIRST STEPS Awards 2017 in the main category Best Feature Film

Film Festival in Rome 2017 „Alice nella città“: Main Award: Best Feature Film

7th German Director Award METROPOLIS 2017:

Best Young Director Award – Adrian Goiginger

Best Actress – Verena Altenberger

Best Producer Performance – Nils Dünker (also for “The Best of All Worlds”)

39th Bavarian Film Award 2018:

Best Newcomers Director – Adrian Goiginger

Beste Newcomers Actress – Verena Altenberger

8th Austrian Film Academy Award 2018 in 5 categories:

Best Feature Film– Producer Wolfgang Ritzberger and co-producer Nils Dünker

Best Director – Adrian Goiginger

Best Screenplay – Adrian Goiginger

Best Actress – Verena Altenberger

Best Supporting Actor – Lukas Miko

11th International Children’s Film Festival Bangladesh: Best Director Award – Adrian Goiginger

New York City Winter Film Awards Festival:

Best Actor – Jeremy Miliker

Best Director – Adrian Goiginger

15th Film Critics‘ Award Papierener Gustl: Best Film 2017

Global Cinema Film Festival of Boston: Best Director – Adrian Goiginger

Diagonale 2018: Producer Wolfgang Ritzberger (RitzlFilm – Ritzberger & Ritzberger) for his “Innovative Production Performance“

2nd Indian World Film Festival 2018, India:

Best Director – Adrian Goiginger

Best Actor– Jeremy Miliker

Best Cinematographer – Yoshi Heimrath, Paul Sprinz

5th Turino Underground Cinefestival:

Best Feature Film

Best Sound Design

DFK New Wave 2018, India:

Best Director – Adrian Goiginger

Best Supporting Actor – Jeremy Miliker

Romy 2018:

Best Feature Film

Best Young Actor– Jeremy Miliker

Poverarte – Festival di tutti le Arti 2018

Best Feature Film

Best Director

Best Screenplay

Best Actor – Jeremy Miliker

16th Riverside International Film Festival 2018

Best Feature Film

Best Actress – Verena Altenberger

Best Actor – Jeremy Miliker

51th World-Fest Houston Int. Film/Video Festival 2018

Platinum Remi

Best Actress – Verena Altenberger

Richmond Int. Film & Music Festival 2018

Best Feature Film

Rising Star Award – Jeremy Miliker

Emerge Film Festival of Maine 2018

Best Feature Film

8th HILL COUNTRY FILM FESTIVAL 2018

Best Feature Film

19th Newport Beach Film Festival 2018

Festival Honors – Best Foreign Film

Meraki Film Festival Madrid 2018

Best Feature

Best Director – Adrian Goiginger

Best Actress – Verena Altenberger

Best Promising Actor – Jeremy Miliker

13th Annual Harlem International Film Festival (Hi)

Best Film

Best Actress – Verena Altenberger

MIFF Awards – Milano International Film Festival Awards

Best Acting Performance Female – Verena Altenberger

Best Production Design – Veronica Merlin

Nominations:

Best Debut Film at the 67th Berlinale (Producers and Director)

German Camera Award (Yoshi Heimrath und Paul Sprinz) u.v.m.

MFG Star Award at the TV Film Festival Baden-Baden

Best Actor, Best Actress at the 5th Turino Underground Cinefestival

Best Actress at the Romy 2018

Best Director at the 16th RIVERSIDE INT’L FILM FESTIVAL

Rising Star Actor at 51st WorldFest-Houston Int. Film/Video Festival

Best Director and Best Actress at the Richmond Int. Film & Music Festival, U.S.

Best Narrative Feature at NYC Independent Film Festival, U.S.

Best Directing, Best Screenwriting, Best Acting Performance Male, Best Cinematography, Best Supporting Actor, Best Film bei den Milano International Film Festival Awards

Upcoming festivals

No end in sight because on top of the U.S. festivals we are invited to many international festivals, and there are more invitations coming in!

ZLÍN FILM FESTIVAL, Czech Republic (May 25 – June 2)

2. SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO FILM FESTIVAL, Santiago del Estero, Argentina, (June 26-30)

European Film Days Tokyo 2018 ( May 26 – June 22)

SOTTO LE STELLE DELL’AUSTRIA, Cultural Forum Rome, ITA (end of June until beginning of July)

Colortape International Film Festival, Brisbane, Australia (July)

“The Best of All Worlds”

For all those, who haven’t yet seen our wonderful film the DVD and VOD were released on March 9 2018!

Click here to order