LBBW-Stiftung awards the “Prof. Dr Walther Zügel Sponsorship Awards”

On 29 April, the foundation LBBW-Stiftung awarded the “Prof. Dr Walther Zügel Awards for Students of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg” for the first time. With this naming, the LBBW Foundation honours its founder and long-standing Chairman of the Board of Landesgirokasse, Prof. Dr Walther Zügel, who passed away in July 2025 at the age of 92.

The LBBW-Stiftung is thus commemorating not only its founder, but also a defining figure who played a key role in expanding the Landesgirokasse’s art collection. Together with the then Lord Mayor, Prof. Manfred Rommel, he also initiated numerous art and cultural projects in the Stuttgart region.

“With this step, which was agreed with his family, we wish to honour the outstanding achievements of Prof. Zügel,” explained Stephan Schorn, Managing Director of the LBBW-Stiftung and Head of the LBBW’s Social Engagement Group. “His commitment has had a lasting impact on the work of the Foundation and on cultural life in the region. It is important to us to keep this legacy visible.”

Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (FABW) thanked the LBBW-Stiftung for its long-standing support. The funding enables students to realise their film projects to a professional standard and to develop them artistically.

“The ongoing support from the LBBW-Stiftung is of great importance to our students. It opens up scope for experimentation and helps them take the next step in their artistic development,” said Prof. Dr Andreas Bareiß, Artistic Director and Managing Director of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.

The following projects were awarded funding in the 2025/2026 academic year:

• H.E.A.T.
• TÖLE & TAUBE
• KOREAN LOVE SONNETS
• CHRONICLES OF A BORDER
• POCKET BIKE SYMPHONY

The LBBW-Stiftung has been supporting FABW since 1993. Since 2002, a structured film funding programme has been in place, under which five projects from the third year of the Directing course are funded with 3,000 euros each annually. The selection is made from the fields of Fiction Film, Documentary Film, Advertising Film, Film Journalism and Extended Directing.

The programme enables students to realise their own film projects under professional conditions and to develop them artistically.

In 2027, the film funding programme run by the LBBW-Stiftung and Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg will celebrate its 25th anniversary. It is thus one of the established funding instruments for FABW students.

H.E.A.T. (Directing/Documentary Film)
Directed by: Nils Eberwein
Team: Jona Riese, Anna-Lena Herzmann, Thamara Medecigo Cruz, Leon Maximilian Brückner, Constantin Rinke

An unassuming seminar centre in Germany: this is where a five-day ‘Hostile Environment Awareness Training’ (H.E.A.T.) begins, preparing civilians for missions in war and crisis zones. Nine participants, including Elena, a paramedic on her way to Ukraine; Wael, a disaster relief worker travelling to North Africa; and Maria, a Ukrainian journalist in exile, gather on Monday morning. Nervous, curious, each with their own fears and expectations.

TÖLE & TAUBE (Directing/Extended Directing, Short Film/Drama)
Directed by: Leonie Waschik
Team: Isabella Müller de Paula, Jona Riese, Imanuel Thiele, Alex Peschke, Diana Westphal

Shortly before their talent show, a group of girls and their supervisor receive news of a femicide – and with it the question of what self-assured expression and male solidarity might look like in a violent world.

KOREAN LOVE SONNETS (Directing/Film Journalism, Short Documentary)
Directed by: Roshan Arvin Bayesteh
Team: Laure Estival, Kavindu Sivarajha, Hanno Mertin, Pauline Nögel

The film captures the performances of Korean experimental musician and performance artist bela at the Sonic Acts Festival in Amsterdam and at the Elevate Festival in Graz in February and March. The shows, accompanied by video installations, open resonant spaces by playing with the audience’s positioning within the performance environment. In interviews, bela reflects on their artistic practice, formative influences, and future directions. Befriended writers appear within the film, sharing memories and reciting prose in relation to bela’s work. The film further offers insight into bela’s working process during a live session at the Electroacoustic Institute of the Academy of Arts in Berlin, as well as a collaboration with Alexander Iezzi from the Berlin-based experimental duo 33___33_33.

CHRONICLES OF A BORDER (Directing/Film Journalism, Documentary Film)
Directed by: Alan Chadenas
Team: Victor Rubow, Laura Avemarie, Vincent Schlagkamp, Clara Schrader

On the French-Italian border, politically sanctioned illegal pushbacks force refugees into a deadly, Sisyphean struggle between high mountains and police violence. The film highlights the consequences of a questionable border policy and shows people who respond to the harshness of the Alps and the authorities with solidarity.

POCKET BIKE SYMPHONY (Directing/Fiction Film, Short Film/Drama)
Directed by: Marius Schwingel and Adrian Sagolla
Team: Em Johrden, Rocco Häuser, Philipp Mallmann, Caroline Lara Klatt

Sixteen-year-old Pavel and his friends Teo and Rosha drift through the fictional, dreary, bourgeois town of Braake in the height of summer, searching for intensity and connection. The boys find no place for themselves and no access to their own selves. Their shared experiences have left cracks, tensions and hurt feelings in their wake. Unable to address this, they take refuge in the use of nitrous oxide.
Whilst using it in the gazebo of their adult friend Björn, a young boy gets hold of a nitrous oxide balloon through Pavel and suffers a seizure. Overwhelmed, the group flees across the city’s wastelands. For the first time, they are directly confronted with the consequences of their actions.