»Einhundertvier« Documentary Film by Design Student Jonathan Schörnig Wins »Grimme-Preis«
The film documents the rescue of 104 individuals in the Mediterranean Sea. How a sea rescue takes place is hard to imagine. Jonathan Schörnig, a Media Art and Design student at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, portrays this dramatic situation from the perspective of the rescuers in his documentary film »Einhundertvier«. The film has been awarded the prestigious 2025 »Grimme-Pries« in the »Information & Kultur« (information & culture) category.
The film follows the rescue of 104 refugees on a sinking rubber dinghy boat. Shortly after the emergency call is made, a number of cameras film various situations simultaneously. Multiple perspectives offer viewers the opportunity to focus on the different actions happening at the same time. The uncut real-time documentary begins with the search for the refugee boat by the lifeboat in front and continues until the successful rescue. The situation intensifies when the Syrian coast guard appears - no Mediterranean state will allow the lifeboat to dock in a harbour; it is only when a storm sets in that they are permitted to dock.
Jonathan Schörnig shot this footage in 2019 before he began studying Media Art and Design at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar’s Faculty of Art and Design. He processed his footage and put together a rough draft for an exhibition as part of the Fine Art Education (Secondary School) in the 2022/2023 winter semester. »It occurred to me that the material was perfect for a documentary film and would be better presented on a screen«, says Schörnig.
The film has proven extremely successful at numerous festivals. In 2023, »Einhundertvier« won four awards, including the »Goldenen Taube«, at the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film. MDR released the film on the ARD media library for the first time in October 2024, making it eligible for the »Grimme-Pries«. Other awards the film has won include the Goethe-Institut’s 2023 »Dokumentarfilmpreis«, the main prize at the 2024 »It’s all true« Film Festival in South America and, most recently, the award for Best Documentary at the 51st »Internationalen Filmwochenende Würzburg«.
Further information on the film, Jonathan Schörnig, and the awards can be found at: einhundertvier-film.de.
The 61st annual »Grimme-Pries« ceremony will be televised on the evening of Friday, 4 April 2025 starting at 10:29 pm on 3sat.
EINHUNDERTVIER - Trailer 2025
from Jonathan Schörnig
Click the Play button to load and view external content from Vimeo.com.
Automatically load and view external content from Vimeo.com (You can change this setting at any time via our »Data protection policy«.)
The documentary film is available in the ARD Mediathek at: https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/mdr-dok/einhundertvier/mdr/Y3JpZDovL21kci5kZS9zZW5kdW5nLzI4MjA0MS8yMDI0MTAyODA4MDAvbWRycGx1cy1zZW5kdW5nLTkzMTI
»Einhundertvier« by Jonathan Schörnig
Documentary Film
Germany
2023
93 Minutes
Director/Visual Design: Jonathan Schörnig
Visual Design: Johannes Filous
German, English
Subtitles: English