Marburg News: The Flair of the Berlin Film Festival in Marburg! - Twelfth Marburg Camera Prize Awarded to Agnes Godard

The Flair of the Berlin Film Festival in Marburg! Twelfth Marburg Camera Prize Awarded to Agnes Godard

It was like Marburg's own version of the Berlin Film Festival! With a solemn ceremony in the auditorium of the old university, the Frenchwoman Agnès Godard was presented with the twelfth Camera Prize for her outstanding achievements as a cinematographer. Following Judith Kaufmann, who received the 2006 award, she is the second female winner of the €5000 prize, presented to cinematographers by the City of Marburg and the Philipp University. With international movies like Hunting and Gathering, starring Audrey Tatou (Claude Berri, 2006) and Golden Door (Emanuele Crialese, 2007), Godard excels with her multifaceted, unexpected imagery, in interaction with the director. The jury therefore explained its award by describing Godard as "one of the most succinct, daring and influential cinematographic de-signers in European film production".

The special feature of the Marburg Prize is less the money than the appreciation of people who help make movies but are not, like other contributors to the production, in the spotlight. And although the winner of the 2009 Camera Prize, Wolfgang Thaler, commented with surprise that he had never heard of Marburg before he got the letter informing him of his honour, the central Hessian city is a "movie town". Marburg citizens go to the movies seven times more often than the national average. One of the reasons is the many art movie theatres in the city on the Lahn.

At the same time, the Marburg Camera Prize reflects the academic spirit of the university city. The Media Studies department of the Philipp University of Marburg provides a largely theoretical course of study with visual media. The media scientist Professor Dr. Karl Prümm, is among those who initiated the prize.


All Marburg Camera Prize winners, while little known, are masters of their professions and still very successful and productive. Anthony Dod Mantle, awarded the prize in 2011 for his work as the cinematographer for Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2008), is currently in two post-productions, and Agnes Godard designed the images for Home (2008), a production of young, promising, European film-maker and laudatory Ursula Meier.

The Marburg Camera Prize is where international movie makers get to know Marburg, but the prize is also an integral part of the city’s life. At the awards ceremony party in the "Marburg Culture Factory” after the official celebration, the prize winner, the presenter and the jury members danced in the small dancing hall along with older and younger visitors and students; when they left, the party continued.

The fact that the filmmakers and Godard liked Marburg and its surroundings and that Marburg liked Godard was shown before and during the Marburg camera interviews in the film arts theater and a day after the ceremony. The Marburg Camera Prize thrives on this mutual empathy and appreciation. Godard and its predecessors have make the city and its university known in cinema circles. On the other hand, Marburg has brought the work of the cinematographers into the public. It’s not surprising that almost every winner enjoyed his visit to the city on the Lahn, and that many citizens of Marburg and its surroundings attend the annual award.