Mainz – November 08, 2026 -- Heidrun Holzfeind's "The 49th Year" has won the 2026 3sat Documentary Film Prize, endowed with €6,000, at the 50th Duisburger Filmwoche, the festival for documentary film from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The prize has been funded since 1996 by the four 3sat partners ZDF, ORF, SRG and ARD. It goes to the best German-language documentary in the festival programme.
Austria-Germany-Japan co-production profiles a Japanese activist jailed for 40 years
The roughly 88-minute film, produced in 2026, follows Toshihiko Kamata. He led a left-wing group that carried out attacks on police posts and US military facilities in Japan in the early 1970s. Through his letters, Kamata describes life underground and in prison and comments on current events and politics.
Three-member jury cites film's sparing editing of prisoner's letters
The independent jury consisted of German director and author Andreas Goldstein, Austrian media politics professor Nicole Kandioler-Biet and Swiss journalist and filmmaker Nicole Vögele. The jury said the film edits Kamata's letters and texts in a sparing yet clever way and makes the viewer the addressee of his letters.
3sat chief Natalie Müller-Elmau presents award on festival's 50th anniversary
Müller-Elmau used her speech to mark the festival's 50-year anniversary and its long partnership with 3sat. She described Duisburg as a place where films are questioned, challenged and debated rather than simply screened and applauded.
3sat streams 50 documentaries from 50 festival years in its Mediathek
The broadcaster is showing fifty documentaries from the festival's history under the title "50 Years – 50 Films". Scheduled broadcasts include "Soldaten des Lichts" by Julian Vogel and Johannes Büttner on Monday, Nov. 9, at 22:25, and Peter Nestler's "Unrecht und Widerstand" the same day at 00:15. Peter Mettler's "Gambling Gods and LSD" follows on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 22:25.