- Hannelore Elsner Prize for Corinna Harfouch
Corinna Harfouch (69) will be honored with the Hannelore-Elsner Prize at the Five Lakes Film Festival. The award, worth 5,000 euros, recognizes outstanding achievements by German-speaking actresses. It has been awarded since 2019 in memory of Hannelore Elsner, who died that year. Harfouch follows previous winners Barbara Auer, Nina Hoss, Birgit Minichmayr, Sandra Hüller, and Paula Beer, as announced by the organizers.
Festival director Matthias Helwig praised Harfouch as "a character actress in the best sense." She is an actress, he said, "who makes a film an event." "One can only ever marvel and watch as she interprets her roles and imbues the characters with a depth and radiance that stays in the memory for a long time."
The festival runs from September 3 to 12. At the awards ceremony on September 9 in the Schlossberghalle Starnberg, Harfouch's new film "The Irony of Life" will be shown. The festival will also pay tribute to the actress with a homage featuring three other films.
Harfouch, born on October 16, 1954, in Suhl, was initially engaged at various theaters and has been awarded several times for her theater work. In the early 1980s, she made her film debut and achieved success in films by notable DEFA directors such as Roland Gräf ("The House by the River") and Siegfried Kühn ("The Actress"). After German reunification, she also made it in the West.
Her filmography, comprising over 100 cinema and television films, is characterized by a wide range and complex character roles, the festival organizers noted. She has played roles such as Magda Goebbels in Oliver Hirschbiegel's "Downfall", a depressive mother in Hans-Christian Schmid's family drama "What Remains", and a fleeing East German citizen in Margarethe von Trotta's "The Promise".
The Five Lakes Film Festival is struggling with rising costs and reduced subsidies. The future of the festival is at risk, the organizers announced in April. A shortfall in income, combined with higher expenses due to inflation and rising space and personnel costs, is contributing to this.
Corinna Harfouch's extensive filmography, filled with diverse and intricate character roles, has earned her numerous awards and honors over the years. Her recognition at the Five Lakes Film Festival with the Hannelore-Elsner Prize further cements her status as a celebrated German-speaking actress.
