Kompagnon Fellowship
The annual Kompagnon Fellowship is awarded jointly by Perspektive Deutsches Kino and Berlinale Talents. It’s open to screenwriters and directors based in Germany who were selected for the last edition of Perspektive Deutsches Kino or participated in the Script Station, Doc Station or Short Form Station at the current edition of Berlinale Talents.
The fellowship provides a stipend to develop a screenplay or project, consisting of €5,000 for feature-length projects or €2,500 for short formats. Based on the filmmaker’s individual needs, a mentor is chosen to support and strengthen their artistic signature - whether through coaching or personal consultancy.
For the first time in 2023 the Kompagnon Fellowship is supported by the German Federal Film Board (FFA).
Anna Melikova
My Beloved Man’s Female Body
Berlinale Talents Script Station 2023
Jury Statement: The story is an identity game that constantly takes new turns. And early on, it gets very serious, because of the war dominating life in Ukraine. Is it possibly too soon to make a fiction film on the first weeks of the war of aggression? We think that’s exactly what lends the film its urgency and documentative immediacy. The author dares to touch on difficult subjects, but does so with lightness, capturing characters who are all in transitionary phases. A trans-man decides to leave the war zone to protect his life. But he’s stopped at the country’s border, since he’s obliged to defend his country as a man, despite his papers identifying him as a woman. His partner stays by his side and must also redefine herself, since after his transition, she’ll be considered heterosexual. The whole country, just like these two characters, is in transition, and when it’s over, nothing will be the same as it was before. We see great potential in Anna Melikova’s project My Beloved Man’s Female Body and hereby award it with a Kompagnon Fellowship 2023.
Mareike Wegener
Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove
Perspektive Deutsches Kino
Jury Statement: The film is about a woman seldom seen in the movies – lonely, but searching, she wanders between reality and fantasy. The forced isolation of the pandemic is a barely manageable challenge for Cloe. The young philologist has made a career out of summarizing her clients’ resumes for speeches – but soon, they’re all eulogies. When even her own mother declines to hug Cloe, and her dog nearly dies from an overdose of sleeping pills, a lost glove becomes a substitute for human interaction and opens up a world of fantastic adventures. With the certainty of a sleepwalker, the film becomes a magical-realism thriller. Mareike Wegener plays with the audience’s expectations - fortunately, since it creates ludicrous moments of confusion that arise from the deep psychological pain of loneliness. Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove is awarded with the Kompagnon Fellowship 2023. Congratulations!
