At the 52nd International Film Festival in Wuerzburg, the audience chose two feature films as winners: after the votes were counted, the scores for Made in EU and DJ Ahmet differed by only five decimal places. The organizers therefore decided to award joint first place to the two productions, which were part of the program focusing on films from Eastern and Southeastern Europe.
The audience award comes with prize money of €2,500, donated by VR-Bank Wuerzburg. A donor who wishes to remain anonymous enabled the film initiative to pay the second audience winner the full prize money of €2,500 as well.
Austrian director Bernhard Pötscher won the documentary film award with his portrait Otto Lechner – Der Musikant (Otto Lechner – The Musician). He can look forward to prize money of €2,500, donated by Sparkasse Mainfranken Wuerzburg.
In the short film category, Beurk and Let’s settle This! were the audience favorites. The makers of the two best short films will each receive €500 from the Midlife Club.
Visitor numbers were once again higher than last year. Around 8,700 visitors attended the more than 90 screenings. The rush of film fans was particularly strong on the last two days of the festival. On Saturday and Sunday, three-quarters of all screenings were sold out. The average occupancy rate over the entire film festival was 81 percent (compared to 76 percent in 2025).
The most-watched film at the film festival was DJ Ahmet, with 328 viewers in the regular program (it was also shown at the sold-out opening event). Documentaries are always very popular in Wuerzburg: Soldaten des Lichts (Soldiers of Light), for example, was seen by 234 viewers.
Katharina Schulz, chairwoman of the Wuerzburg Film Initiative, summed up the 52nd Wuerzburg International Film Festiival as follows: “We are overwhelmed by the great interest shown by the Wuerzburg audience in the film festival – we sold significantly more tickets than last year. This shows that film festivals are enormously important because they allow international filmmakers and local audiences to engage in conversation, because opinions and perspectives are heard and discussed – and because encounter and dialogue are crucial for good coexistence in times like these.”
The 53rd edition of the International Film Festival will take place from January 28 to 31, 2027.
And here are the winners of each category once again:
BEST FEATURE FILM
1. Made in EU by Stephan Komandarev (2,500 Euro from VR-Bank Wuerzburg)
1. DJ Ahmet by Georgi M. Unkovski (2,500 euros from an anonymous sponsor)
3. La Hija Cóndor by Álvaro Olmos Torrico
BEST DOCUMENTARY
1. Otto Lechner – Der Musikant by Bernhard Pötscher (2,500 Euro from Sparkasse Mainfranken Wuerzburg)
2. Noch lange keine Lipizzaner by Olga Kosanović
3. Gerry Adam: A Ballmurphy Man by Trisha Ziff
BEST SHORT FILM
1. Beruk by Loïc Espuche from the Short Film block 1 (500 Euro from Midlife Club)
1. Let’s settle This! by Jack Woon from the Short Film block 2 (500 Euro from Midlife Club)
We are pleased to announce that we were able to secure three late show dates for the matinée on Sunday, February 8, at Central im Bürgerbräu. This means that at least some of those who missed out in this year’s rush will be able to get another taste of the festival atmosphere. The audience favorites DJ Ahmet (1st place, feature films), Made in EU (1st place, feature films) and the documentary winner Otto Lechner – Der Musikant will be shown.