Caroline Link wins the Grimme Prize Special for the outstanding achievement of drawing out the inner lives of children in "SAFE" as a driving element of plot, suspense and insight in the writing, and of staging it on screen together with the children in her direction.
The jury gives its reasons for the award:
"Fascinating and unsettling scenes from "Safe" stay with you: when six-year-old Ronja gets herself ready with lipstick and powder, the line blurs between creative childhood dress-up and her disturbing wish to be liked as a "woman". While Valentin Oppermann (Sam) and Carla Hüttermann (Nellie) already have acting experience, Jonte Blankenberg as Jonas and Lotte Shirin Keiling as Ronja are not even teenagers yet. With her direction, Caroline Link succeeds outstandingly in staging the children so that their behaviour in front of the camera feels spontaneous and as impulsively age-appropriate as it should, even though everything at the same time follows the inner narrative very rigorously in its dramaturgy, demanding development and tension. For of course — and this is the trick — the adult audience stands at an age-appropriate, purely rational distance from the children. Emotionally, however, you go right in — and back — into the world of children, in which the troubles of the soul are revealed differently. As a story in the sandpit, for example, in raging, hesitating, distracting. The fictional storytelling of this year empowers children and young people in a special way. Caroline Link's series fits this — and is yet absolutely singular." (59th Grimme Prize 2023)
Written and directed by: Caroline Link
Production: Claussen+Putz Filmproduktion GmbH
Children's Casting: Franziska Schlattner