When the industry meets for the film award gala in Berlin on Friday evening, the excitement is limited. No one seriously doubts that Edward Berger's twelve-time nominated film "Nothing New in the West" will win one Lola after another, not only in the technical categories, but also in terms of screenplay, actors, direction and best film.

However, the often erratic behavior of the German Film Academy does not make it seem completely absurd that in the end it passes over a film that has received four Oscars and which it itself has maneuvered into the role of favorite.

This situation is not good news for German film. A Netflix production that has been in the cinema just long enough to be nominated for the film award, whose budget could never have been financed from German film funding, a naturalistic slaughter record – is this what the Academy wants to see as an artistically valuable and successful showcase film?

What does the Film Academy want?

It has never been easy to determine what constitutes an award-worthy film for the now more than 2000 members. For example, Lars Kraume's "The Presumptuous Man" about the brutal suppression of the Herero uprising does not have to be considered particularly successful.

But it has everything that is otherwise well received by the academy: a politically charged topic, social relevance, a reference to postcolonial debates, a polarizing effect. Nevertheless, he did not even make it into the pre-selection of the best 20 films. It didn't even help that producer Thomas Kufus was chairman of the academy's board for six years.

In Christian Petzold's "Red Sky" it was clear that petty antipathies played a role. He, too, was not even included in the pre-selection. To this day, Petzold has no interest in joining the Academy. The fact that his film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlinale – why should the Academy care about such a thing? Whether one is amazed, angry or capitulated to ignorance in the face of these academy decisions – that is probably a question of temperament.

In any case, the nominations reinforce doubts that it was a good idea to give the guild of a private sector almost three million euros of public money into its hands so that it can distribute it as it sees fit. This is also because these are bonuses that are expressly intended to apply to an artistic achievement. The fact that the members of the Film Academy, among whom actors and actresses make up the largest group, have practically never distinguished anything daring or advanced is not a new finding.

Where so many vote, the trend is towards mediocrity, towards the lowest common denominator. At the same time, people shy away from commerce. Although the film with the highest number of visitors is honored with a Lola, most of these films have not received a single nomination in the last ten years. Big exception: Caroline Link's "The boy has to go out into the fresh air".

A jury also has its weaknesses

And so, in all likelihood, it will be a very one-sided event again this year. You treat Leonie Benesch to an actress Lola for her role in "The Teacher's Room" (or Sandra Hüller for "Sisi & I") and see who else gets a few crumbs. However, the idea that a jury should award the German film prizes instead of the plenum, which has been expressed several times, also has its pitfalls. Not only because the socially super-balanced juries, which were in office until 2004 before the founding of the academy and in which politicians and church representatives also sat, were often criticized.

It was also a jury of the Federal Ministry of Culture, made up of cinema operators and distributors, who refused distribution funding for Angela Schanelec's film "Music" last week. Justifications are not common. The fact that Schanelec won the prize for best screenplay for her film at this year's Berlinale was apparently not enough. Just as the 2019 Berlinale Director's Award and the director's international reputation were not enough to win the prize for "I was at home, but . . ." from the BKM to get rental funding.

A small distributor like Grandfilm, which has stood for an artistically ambitious program for years, is hit hard financially. Let's see how the Academy will treat the film, which will only be eligible for the 2024 film award. And even if the industry celebrates itself in the low-atmosphere Theater am Potsdamer Platz, the impression remains that in German film you don't even recognize an outstanding achievement when it can be seen directly in front of you on the screen.