Uproar in the film scene: Michael Steiner leaves the Swiss film academy in protest

Director Michael Steiner (“My name is Eugen”) leaves the Swiss Film Academy in protest. He criticizes the fact that the Swiss film prize has become a ‘Prix Romandie’ because this year mainly films from French-speaking Switzerland were nominated.

This has to do with the academy’s system, member Steiner said on Monday in the program ‘Faces & Stories’ on the German-language Swiss radio and television SRF. In 2006, Steiner himself won the Swiss film prize for ‘My Name is Eugen’.

With “Grounding – The Last Days of Swissair” Steiner once again celebrated a great success with the public. “Sennentuntschi” (2010) was also recorded under his direction.

“Anyone who has won a prize can vote. But if it happens that the French-speaking Swiss only vote for the French-speaking Swiss, then the Swiss film prize will no longer be of any use,” Steiner continued.

Academy co-president Samir (Samir Jamal Aldin, born in Baghdad) expressed his regret about Steiner’s decision. The accusation that French-speaking Switzerland voted more for their films and thus drowned out German-language Swiss films cannot be accepted, he said in the same program. According to Samir, approximately as many German-speaking Swiss as French-speaking Swiss voted.

The Federal Office for Culture, co-awarder of the Swiss Film Prize alongside SRG SSR and the Quartz Association, was quoted in the SRF broadcast as saying: “We are convinced that the members of the Academy carry out their duties with the utmost seriousness and with carry out the utmost seriousness. concern.”

According to its own information, the Swiss Film Academy includes more than 600 personalities from all sectors of the Swiss film industry: 73 percent from German-speaking Switzerland, 22 percent from French-speaking Switzerland and almost 5 percent from Italian-speaking Switzerland. The members nominate and select the winners of the Swiss Film Awards in 13 categories.

For the launch in May 2008, all award winners were present, as well as those involved in the production and distribution of the award-winning feature films and documentaries. (sda)