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Hans Ohlms Award presented again at the International Film Festival Oldenburg

Since 2023, the foundation has presented the €3,000 Hans Ohlms Award for Best First Film. This year, the prize was once again awarded during a festive gala at the Oldenburg International Film Festival.

The prize went to Michael J. Long for his film ‘BABY BROTHER’.

Adam and his far too good-natured little brother Liam have grown up in a dysfunctional family in a run-down neighbourhood of Liverpool - although the term family seems almost inappropriately friendly for the coke-snorting mother and violent boyfriend. The brothers manage to keep through, but then Adam has to leave. When he returns to his parents' house five years later, the two of them almost inevitably fail in their attempt to rekindle the old cohesion. Told over a period of two days, five years apart, we witness an inferno in the making - skilfully told in intermingled scenes from the past and present. In his powerful film debut about lives that are doomed from the moment of birth, Michael J. Long manages to intersperse this haunting tale of brotherly love lost to circumstance with moments of pure joy and poetry. An uncomfortable, unpleasant and yet unforgettably beautiful cinema experience.

The Hollywood Reporter writes "[...] Michael J. Long’s directorial debut showcases a stylistic audacity rare in a first-time filmmaker, and there’s no denying the raw power of this wrenching picture [...]"