At the 45th Film Festival Max Ophuels Prize in Saarbrücken, the Ecumenical Jury awarded its €2,500 prize to "Jenseits der blauen Grenze" (Beyond the Blue Border) by Sarah Neumann (Germany 2024). The prize money is jointly donated by the Katholische Erwachsenebildung im Saarland - Landesarbeitsgemeinschaft e.V. and the Landesarbeitsgemeinschaft für Evangelische Erwachsenenbildung im Saarland e.V., represented by the Evangelische Akademie im Saarland. The film also received the audience award for the feature film competition and the prize for the best young actor, which was awarded to Willi Geitmann.
"Electric Fields" by Lisa Gertsch (Switzerland 2023) also received several prizes, namely the festival's main prize, the Max Ophuels Prize, the Fritz Raff Screenplay Prize and the Film Critics' Prize (Fipresci Prize). The prize for best director (Film Prize of the Minister President of the Saarland) went to Sara Summa for "Arthur&Diana" (Germany 2023).
The festival opened on 22 January with "Rickerl - Musik is höchstens a Hobby" by Adrian Goiginger (Germany, Austria 2023) starring the Austrian musician Voodoo Jürgens. The Ecumenical Jury awards its prize to a film from the feature film competition. Other competition sections of the festival are the Documentary Film Competition, the Medium Length Film Competition and the Short Film Competition. The Tribute of the 2024 festival was dedicated to the German director Christian Schwochow.