The Farewell Ceremony and bestowal of the Volkswagen Score Competition final award on Thursday marked the successful close of the Berlinale Talent Campus #5.

362 young filmmakers from all over the world were welcomed to the three buildings that make up the “Hebbel am Ufer” theatres for six intensive days. Panel discussions with renowned film and media experts, excursions, screenings and workshops - with over 80 different events the fifth Campus could offer an array of interpretations of this year’s theme “Home Affairs – Privacy, Films and Politics” to the Talents, Berlinale guests and visitors from the public. Among the Campus highlights were interviews with Walter Salles, John Waters, Bianca Jagger, Jasmila Žbanić, Tom Tykwer, Wim Wenders and jury member of the Berlinale’s Competition section, Gael Garcia Bernal. In 90 extremely entertaining minutes the actor talked about the real and fictional borders he had to cross to get his career moving. His advice to upcoming film professionals: “The most important thing is not to hinder or compromise your point of view, especially not for commercial reasons.”

One Day – One Movie. The Garage Studio is the new initiative of the Working Campus. On the final Campus day all four “Garage Flicks” produced over the week: Resigned, One Day of These Days, Click-Clack-Clack and The Discreet Charms of the Refugee, were presented to the public on the big screen in HAU 1. In a discussion moderated by David Thompson (Head of BBC Films), the international Talent teams, together with the project’s mentors Jia Zhangke, Grahame Weinbren and Jay Anania, reported on their experience working in this new form of digital film production. "The garage experience has been an intense and unique mixture of excitement, fear, hard work and surprise! It's been really important for me”, explains Colm Quinn, director of The Discreet Charms of the Refugee. The four “Garage Flicks” can be viewed online at www.berlinale-talentcampus.de.

The highlight of the programme was the Farewell Ceremony on the last day of the Campus where the winner of the Volkswagen Score Competition was announced. Campus Director Dorothee Wenner and actor Thomas Heinze emceed the evening’s ceremony. Christiane Krebs-Hartmann, Head of Volkswagen Public Relations, was present on behalf of Volkswagen AG to announce the winner of the Volkswagen Score Competition: the Berlin composer Ilja Coric was recognized and awarded for his new scoring of an excerpt from One Day in Wolfsburg. Jury members Martin Steyer, Martin Todsharow and Jan Kaczmarek were impressed by his “fresh way of presenting his craftfully worked out score“. The winner, Ilja Coric, will be invited on a one-week trip to visit the Dolby music and sound studios in Los Angeles, disclosed Graham Edmonson, Film Marketing Manager at Dolby.

Following the award ceremony, the Campus invited the Talents, experts, guests and partners to a farewell party in HAU 2. The band “Data MC“, whose live performance was supported by Volkswagen Sound Foundation, kept the party atmosphere alive. In addition to the Campus, the Robert Bosch Stiftung and Volkswagen AG were the evening’s hosts.

Talent Alon Levi summarized: "I mostly enjoyed meeting people from other countries, whom I normally don't have contact to elsewhere. I got to know people with the same sense of humour, which is very important when you do films. And Berlin is not as cold as I expected it to be!"

 Bruno