"Babyland" wins the NDR "Albatross" award

At the "Series Lab Hamburg", various European film production teams met online from 22 to 24 June to work on their series projects with script experts. The three-day workshop is a cooperation between Creative Europe Desk Hamburg, Letterbox Filmproduktion and MOIN Film Fund

The jury was impressed by the original and unusual setup and the strong premise: Protagonist Natasha has set up a surrogacy clinic in Ukraine as a place where dreams come true: The dreams of well-travelled parents and the dreams of mothers hoping for a better life. The story is based on a strong ensemble of female characters and deals with major existential dramas. The series is clearly located in a part of Eastern Europe that has hardly ever been told in fiction. The desire to have children is universal and gives the material the potential to find viewers everywhere in Europe."

The jury gives an honourable mention to "Thou shalt not kill" (Scope Pictures), to Executive Producer Geneviéve Lemal and Script Writer David Lambert: "Even though the project is still at an early stage of development, you can already see the extraordinary strength of the material, which holds great conflicts for all the characters. The judicial drama about a family that is left alone in a hopeless situation is based on a true medical scandal in Liege in 1962. A story that still touches us today and should definitely be told."

Members of the "Albatross" jury were the actress Almila Bagriacik, who can be seen in the NDR "Tatort" from Kiel as Commissioner Mila Sahin, alongside Axel Milberg as investigator Borowski. She has also appeared in the series "4 Blocks" and the films "Nur eine Frau" and "NSU - vergesst mich nicht", for which she received the German Acting Award for Best Young Actress. Next year, she will be seen in the cinema comedy "Jagdsaison". British Script Writer Donna Sharpe was also a member of the jury. In addition to numerous international series such as "Lou and Freddi" (HBO Europe), she co-wrote the scripts for "West of Liberty" (ZDF/ITV) with Wotan Wilke Möhring and Lars Eidinger. NDR was represented on the jury by film editor Sabine Holtgreve (editor for "Das Verschwinden" and "Das Geheimnis des Totenwaldes", among others). Project designs for 24 series from 15 countries competed for the prize.

The NDR "Albatross" prize was awarded for the third time: in 2017, the Belgian-German co-production "Missing Lisa" by Jan Matthys was honoured, with the German co-producer being Dorothe Beinemeier from Hamburg. In 2019, Executive Producer Stefan Gieren and Script Writer Max Zähle were honoured for the series concept "Raju".