As part of the Berlin International Film Festival, UniFrance presented a French Cinema Award to the distributor Torsten Frehse (Neue Visionen) on February 10 at the opening of our traditional cocktail reception. The award was presented by UniFrance executive director Isabelle Giordano, in the presence of UniFrance president Jean-Paul Salomé.
Following the presentation of this award to the producers of The Little Prince, Aton Soumache and Dimitri Rassam, the Italian distributor Andrea Occhipinti, and, more recently, the actress Isabelle Huppert, UniFrance has once again honored a key personality in the international movie industry who has contributed to raising the profile of French cinema around the world.
Torsten Frehse, through his distribution company Neue Visionen, which he founded in 1997, is behind the successful release of a number of French films in Germany, including Serial (Bad) Weddings (close to 4 million admissions), A Sense of Wonder and The Student and Mr. Henri (each registering around 700,000 admissions), and Paulette (600,000 admissions). In accepting this award, Torsten Frehse acknowledged the contribution of his associates Sylvia Müller and Dorothée Pfistner, with whom he offered to share the award.
The French Cinema Award trophies are created by the prestigious Saint-Louis crystal manufacturing house, which was founded in 1586.
