Gold Panda Award for DW musical documentary on Schumann

Deutsche Welle’s classical music documentary ‘Schumann at Pier2’ has been awarded one of the top prizes at the 2013 Sichuan TV Festival in China.

Schumann at Pier2 – a film that showcases a new approach to the symphonies of Robert Schumann – has won a Gold Panda for Most Innovative Film in the Anthropology category at the Sichuan TV Festival, one of the largest and most prominent TV festivals in Asia. 

Filmed at Pier2, a former dockyard in the harbor of Bremen where pop and rock concerts usually take place, the documentary aims to present Schumann’s works, interpreted by conductor Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, to a young audience.

“I’m especially pleased that the jury honored our film as ‘most innovative,'” commented DW director Christian Berger. “After all, it was our goal from the very beginning to present classical music in a contemporary way.”

The Gold Panda is the latest in a string of awards for Schumann at Pier2. It has also won the Japan Record Academy Award and was screened as part of the Eugene International Film Festival in the US in November. With 12 awards at international film and TV festivals, Schumann at Pier2 is one of the most successful classical music documentaries presented by Deutsche Welle.

More than 5,000 productions from 77 countries were submitted for the Gold Panda awards this year.