INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR AUSTRIAN SHOOTING STAR VERENA ALTENBERGER

The film The Best of All Worlds, the directorial debut of Salzburg’s director Adrian Goiginger, also won an award for Verena Altenberger as Best Actress at the 39th Moscow Int. Film festival (MIFF). The film will be released in cinemas all over Austria on 8 September. After the Berlinale, the 39th International Film Festival Moscow was the first major A-festival outside Austria and Germany showing The Best of All Worlds; it ended tonight with the closing gala and awards ceremony.

After receiving the Best Actress Award for her role in Adrian Goiginger’s debut movie at this year’s Diagonale, the Festival of Austrian Film, Verena Altenberger was again listed in this category in Moscow. Altenberger, currently shooting the RTL TV Show Magda macht das schon in Berlin where she plays the main character, was very excited about the award and regretted being unable to attend the awards ceremony in person.

“For us the reaction of the audience and recognition by the jury at the international film festival is very important because the movie has been very well received, and not just by German speaking audiences,” said producer Wolfgang Ritzberger. “Adrian’s story about his childhood, the film about the love between mother and son, are clearly understood everywhere. This is huge reward for having had the courage to shoot this film in the Salzburg dialect.”

The film was shown in competition at the MIFF, for which 13 movies had been chosen from all over the world. A total of around 400 movies were shown in Moscow over the past 10 days. The film festival in Moscow was accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Association (FIAPF) in 1972 as a festival which runs a competition. This year’s jury included Italian actress Ornella Muti, German Brigitte Manthey from the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the Finnish filmmaker and former director of the Swedish Film Institute Jörn Donner, the Spanish director Albert Serra, and the Russian actor Alexander Adabashayan. The chairman of the jury was director Reza Mirkarimi from Iran who himself was awarded the Golden St. George for the best movie at the MIFF 2008.

Movie release in Austria on 8 September, and 28 September in Germany.