Klaus Eder receives the German Film Critics’ Honorary Award for Life Achievement

This year’s German Film Critics’ Honorary Award goes to Klaus Eder, retiring General Secretary of FIPRESCI, for lifetime achievement in the service of international film criticism.

Klaus Eder, born in 1939, began as an editor of the monthly magazine Film in the 1960s and from 1968 became a film critic on the radio programme of Bayerischer Rundfunk, the Bavarian public broadcaster in Munich. In the politically turbulent times after 1968, he curated German film festivals, and from 1986 to 2007 he programmed the Munich International Film Festival, which is known as Filmfest München in Germany. He also championed German film beyond national borders and acted as an advisor to many international festivals. As an author, he has written books on Andrzej Wajda, Luis Bunuel, Im Kwon-taek and Nagisa Ōshima, among others.

His life’s work, however, was FIPRESCI, which he headed for 38 years, from 1987 to 2024, during which time he shaped it into what it is today: an umbrella federation of international film critics associations with 50 national sections worldwide and 36 additional countries represented individually. The German Film Critics Association also understands the honorary award for Klaus Eder as a tribute to FIPRESCI, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

FIPRESCI (Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique) goes back to an initiative of film critics in Paris and Brussels in 1925, who envisioned a federation of international film critics in Europe for professional cooperation and an essential exchange of information. In parallel, they also started out to organise themselves into national associations. At the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946, a FIPRESCI Prize was awarded for the first time for the best film of the festival from a film critics’ point of view.

German filmmakers have also benefited from this International Critics Prize over the years. These include Volker Schlöndorff with Young Törless (Der junge Törless) in Cannes in 1966, Rainer Werner Fassbinder with Katzelmacher in Mannheim in 1969 as well as Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf) in Cannes in 1974 and Werner Herzog in 1975, also in Cannes, with The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle). Later German award winners included Christian Petzold, Caroline Link, Fatih Akin, Hans Christian Schmid and Maren Ade for Toni Erdmann in Cannes in 2016.

Among the films nominated for this year’s German Film Critics’ Awards are no fewer than five films that were honoured with FIPRESCI Awards at various international festivals in the previous year, including The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Die Saat des heiligen Feigenbaums) by Mohammad Rasoulof, which won the FIPRESCI Award in Cannes and has now been nominated for Best International Feature Film as German entry for the Oscars.

Today, FIPRESCI Prizes are awarded at more than 80 international film festivals and film critics from all over the world have the opportunity to participate in FIPRESCI juries at these festivals, including many festivals in Germany, which thus become a subject of international film criticism. There are FIPRESCI juries in Germany in Berlin, Wiesbaden, Oberhausen, Schwerin, Munich, Chemnitz, Leipzig, Cottbus and Mannheim/Heidelberg. 32 film critics from Germany took part in international FIPRESCI juries or colloquiums last year.

Klaus Eder’s tireless efforts over a period of almost 40 years as General Secretary of FIPRESCI made this possible. From the point of view of the German Film Critics Association, Klaus Eder’s contribution to professional exchange in international film criticism and worldwide cooperation between film critics and festivals must be acknowledged as an extraordinary life achievement. German festivals and German film critics in particular have benefited greatly from his great commitment.

Klaus Eder will receive the Honorary Award of German Film Criticism as part of the award ceremony at which the German Film Critics’ Awards are presented on Sunday, 16 February 2025 at the Akademie der Künste during Berlinale.

(Statement of the German Film Critics Association)