"Borga" by York-Fabian Raabe (Ghana, Germany 2021) won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Max Ophuels Prize Saarbruecken 2021, as well as the festival's main award, the audience prize and the prize for the socially relevant film awarded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education and Deutschlandfunk Kultur. The film deals with the problems of globalisation and migration. Several prizes were also awarded to "Fuchs im Bau" by Arman T. Riahi (Austria 2020), namely for Best Director, the Youth Jury Prize and the Fritz Raff Screenplay Prize. It tells the story of a special needs teacher in the penal system.
The 42nd Max Ophüls Film Festival in Saarbrücken took place exclusively online. During the festival, the audience could access the films in the programme via a streaming platform for a ticket fee.
The festival showed a total of 98 productions, 12 of which were in the feature film competition, from which the Ecumenical Jury chose its prize-winner. The festival opened with the documentary "A Black Jesus" by Luca Lucchesi, which deals with conflicts between locals and refugees in a small town in southern Italy where a black statue of Jesus is worshipped.
Link: Festival-Website