In his acceptance speech, Berger addressed his daughter Matilda, who read the novel “Nothing New in the West” by Erich-Maria Remarque at school and convinced him to make a new film out of it. Producer Malte Grunert called the awards “simply incredible”.
“Nothing New in the West” prevailed in the most important category against the films “The Banshees of Inisherin”, “Elvis”, “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and “Tar”.
Berger, 53, beat out fellow nominees Martin McDonagh, Park Chan-wook, Todd Field, Gina Prince-Bythewood and directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert in the Best Director category.
“Nothing New in the West” was nominated a total of 14 times – making it one of the foreign films with the most nominations in British film history.
The Netflix production is a remake of Remarque’s 1920s anti-war novel of the same name, about a young German soldier’s experiences in World War I. There was already a US film adaptation. In the German version, actor Felix Kammerer plays the leading role.
At the Golden Globes in Los Angeles on January 11, “Nothing New on the West” was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, but went away empty-handed. The film has been nominated nine times for the most important film award in the world, the coveted Oscars. The awards ceremony will take place on March 12 in Hollywood.
“Navalny”, a documentary about the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was imprisoned in Russia, was awarded the best documentary film in London. The documentary had already caused a stir in the run-up when the Bulgarian investigative journalist and long-time Kremlin critic Christo Grozev, who appeared in it, stated that the British police had barred him from attending the awards ceremony.
Grozev is researching Russia for the investigative platform Bellingcat. Among other things, the site investigated the poisoning of Navalny, which he had only just survived. Navalny is the most prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is serving a nine-year prison sentence for fraud. He has always denied the allegations.
Cate Blanchett won Best Actress for her role as Conductor in “Tar.” The 53-year-old US-Australian prevailed against Viola Davis, Danielle Deadwyler, Ana De Armas, Emma Thompson and Michelle Yeoh.
Austin Butler was awarded Best Actor for his role in the film “Elvis” about the legendary US singer Elvis Presley. The 31-year-old US actor prevailed against Colin Farrell, Brendan Fraser, Daryl McCormack, Paul Mescal and Bill Nighy.
