3sat Awards €6,000 Documentary Prize to 'The 49th Year' at Duisburg
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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.