The City of Hof presents this year’s Hof City Film Award to director, writer, and lecturer Connie Walther. With this award, the city honors an outstanding filmmaker whose work and artistic presence are closely connected with the Hof International Film Festival.
Connie Walther is regarded as one of the most distinctive voices in German cinema. After studying sociology and Spanish in Marburg, she completed training as an advertising photographer in Düsseldorf, worked in Berlin as a lighting technician and assistant director—among others with Wolfgang Becker and Dominik Graf—and went on to study directing at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB).
Since the mid-1990s, she has been creating feature films, television productions, and documentaries that repeatedly stand out for their strong social perspective.
Her best-known works include The First Time (1996), Never Mind the Wall (Wie Feuer und Flamme, 2001), Shadow World (Schattenwelt, 2007), and The Bitches (Die Rüden, 2019). For her films, she has received numerous national and international awards, including the Adolf Grimme Award, the German Screenplay Award, the Editing Award Cologne, and several audience awards.
In addition to her work as a director, Connie Walther has long been committed to fair working conditions, gender equality, and diversity in the film industry. She is a founding member of Pro Quote Regie, a member of the European Film Academy, has served on the board of the German Film Academy, and is currently active in the initiative Zukunft Kino und Film (“Future of Cinema and Film”).
Connie Walther’s cinematic work embodies the values that define the Hof International Film Festival: authenticity, courage of conviction, and openness to new forms of storytelling. With her film Die Rüden, which was shown in Hof in 2019, Walther deeply moved the festival audience and left a lasting impression — a powerful testament to the strength of her cinema, which gives visibility to people and perspectives that are all too easily overlooked.
