Filmmaker Martin Rehbock receives fourth Baumi Script Development Award
Jury and guest juror Bent Hamer choose the treatment for „The Mule With Three Legs“
Düsseldorf / Berlin, 12 February, 2019. The Baumi Script Development Award is going in its fourth year to a German filmmaker for the first time. The author, producer and director Martin Rehbock received the award today for his treatment for „The Mule With Three Legs“. Endowed with 20,000 Euros, the Baumi Script Development Award is presented each year in memory of the producer Karl „Baumi“ Baumgartner. The jury, which is made up of the award’s founders Pandora Film, the Baumgartner Family and the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, selected the winner out of 56 international entries. This year’s guest juror, the director Bent Hamer, presented the Award during today’s NRW Berlinale Press Lunch.
„I thought a lot about Baumi when I was reading the projects. That was a good opportuinty for me to remember him and even have a kind of exchange with him,“ says guest juror Bent Hamer. „I like the poetic feeling of Martin Rehbock’s treatment in which the retired postman Declan is forced after a lifetime of delivering post to deal with a secret burden from his own childhood.“
Jury motivation:
The treatment promises a humorous film with very authentic and well-defined characters. In „The Mule with Three Legs“, the retired postman Declan has the courage to question his life so far by seeing how much he had been a prisoner of his own prejudices. We believe in the story’s international theatrical potential and hope that Martin Rehbock may perhaps soon find partners in Ireland for the film’s realisation with the support of the Baumi Award.
Synopsis:
Shortly before his retirement, the Irish postman Declan registers to participate in the newly established Constitutional Convention and is not only faced with the young and gay Patrick, but also has to overcome his own prejudices to really make a difference.
About the award-winner:
Martin Rehbock was born in 1972 and lives in Lübeck. He also spent some time in Ireland whilst studying Film and worked as an assistant director at the Theater Oberhausen. After making various shorts and documentaries as a writer, dramaturg and producer, he wrote and produced the feature film „About A Girl“ which was released in the cinemas in 2015. The film received the Emden Screenplay Prize and the Bavarian Film Prize, among others.
About the Award:
The Baumi Script Development Award was presented for the first time in February 2016 in memory of the film producer and distributor Karl „Baumi“ Baumgartner. Endowed with 20,000 Euros, the award was initiated by the founders Martina and Sandra Baumgartner, the company he co-founded, Pandora Film, and the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW. German and international writers can apply for the Award with a treatment in English. A jury consisting of the founders and an annually rotating international filmmaker choose one story idea from all of the submissions. The winner of the first Baumi Award was the Egyptian filmmaker Omar El Zohairy, and Fatih Akin served as the guest juror.. The second award-winner was the Polish filmmaker Kuba Czekaj who received the prize from the guest juror Aki Kaurismäki. Last year saw the Syrian filmmaker Soudade Kaadanreceiving the award from the guest juror Martina Gedeck. She was awarded the Lion of the Future at the Venice Film Festival in 2018. The founders would like to extend special thanks to Katja Closfor the graphics including the logo, Friederike Zeit for the design and the making of the prize sculpture, and to Fritz Erler for the programming of the website.