Jury VFF Documentary Film Production Award 2024
The process of making a documentary film is particularly difficult to plan and often brings with it great uncertainties. Time and again, producers show great courage and demonstrate particular creativity and commitment in project development and film financing. By awarding the VFF Documentary Film Production Prize at DOK.fest Munich, we honour the passionate commitment and role of producers in the development of current cinema documentary film projects.
The prize is sponsored by the VFF Verwertungsgesellschaft der Film und Fernsehproduzenten mbH, is endowed with 7,500 euros, and is unique in Germany. The prize will be awarded for the seventh time at DOK.fest Munich in 2024.
Judith Erber
Head of the Funding Department and Consultant at the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern (FFF)
After working in the film industry for several years, Judith Erber graduated from the HFF Munich in 1999 with a degree in Production and Media Management. She then worked as a production coordinator, producer and producer. From 2012 to 2019, she supported the LfA team as a specialist in film funding and film financing. In 2019, she joined the FFF as a director and is responsible for cinema film production, international co-productions, distribution/distribution and BBF. She was a committee member of the IDM, is a guest lecturer at the HFF, a jury member at the Vienna Business Agency and a board member of the Friends of HFF München e.V.
Thomas Frickel
Author, Director and Producer
After studying German language and literature, journalism and sociology in Mainz, Frickel worked as a freelance journalist for several years, focusing on cultural reporting and historical reportage. Since 1968 he has been working in the film industry. Since 1986, Frickel has been chairman and managing director of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dokumentarfilm (the largest association for independent film in Germany) in various film and cultural policy functions – for example, on the administrative board and executive committee of the FFA, the administrative board of the VG Bild-Kunst, as delegate of the beneficiaries in the VG Wort, on the advisory board of the VFF and the Künstlersozialkasse, etc. For several years he was spokesman for the Film/Media section of the "German Cultural Council". Frickel was also co-founder and until 1999 member of the board of directors of the European Documentary Film Network EDN. He is author, director and producer of numerous short and feature-length documentaries.
Hauke Wendler
Writer, director and producer
Hauke Wendler is an author, director and producer. After studying politics in Hamburg and London, he worked for NDR television for twelve years. In 2006, he founded PIER 53 Filmproduktion with Carsten Rau, with which he also realised cinema productions from 2010. He specialises in the topics of flight and migration. At the same time, from 2013 onwards, he also worked on the history of the plastic chair Monobloc, for which he produced a cinema film and a podcast. Wendler has received numerous awards for his films, including the Grimme Prize. He has also published several books and has worked as a guest lecturer for various universities. In 2021, Hauke Wendler founded his own production company "Other People Pictures".
