The Saarbrücken Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis is dedicated to the young German-speaking film since its establishment in 1980. lt is the most important forum for promoting new talents from Germany, Austria and Switzerland and aims to discover and promote young filmmakers and to offer them a useful and vivid networking platform. The festival is named after Max Ophüls (05/06/1902 - 03/26/1957), born in Saarbrücken and one of the most influencial European film directors of the 20th century. Due to his Jewish origin, Max Ophüls had to immigrate to France in 1933 and later to the United States of America.

In 1949 he returned to Europe. For young filmmakers the participation in one of the film festival's four competitions means an important step in their professional future. 60 to 65 films as German premieres compete every year for 16 awards and a prize money of about 110.000 Euro in the competitions for full length feature, full length documentary, short and medium length films.

Photos: © Max Ophüls Preis Filmfestival, Ali Ghandtschi und Oliver Tietze