Hanna Schygulla to Get Lifetime Achievement Honor at German Film Awards

German acting legend Hanna Schygulla will be honored this year with a lifetime achievement award at the German Film Awards.

Best known for her work with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, including The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), and Lili Marleen (1981), Schygulla’s career has included collaborations with the likes of Wim Wenders (1975’s Wrong Move), Jean-Luc Godard (1982’s Passion) and Fatih Akin (2007’s The Edge of Heaven). More recently, the 80-year-old actress has a scene-stealing cameo in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar-winner Poor Things as Martha von Kurtzroc, the eccentric woman Emma Stone’s character befriends on the cruise ship.

“Hanna Schygulla is an institution of German and European cinema,” said Alexandra Maria Lara, president of the German Film Academy, explaining the decision of the honorary jury. “Through her long-standing collaboration with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, she wrote herself into film history. She became an icon of German auteur cinema with international appeal. Her unrestricted joy of playing makes her presence on the screen unique. Whether daydreaming, seductive or melancholic and fragile — each of her roles has a special aura surrounding it. Hanna Schygulla is one of the most unusual German actresses, whose impressive career we bow to.”

Schygulla will be honored at this year’s German Film Awards in Berlin on May 3. Previous lifetime achievement honorees include actors Armin Müller-Stahl and Senta Berger; directors Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, Werner Herzog, and Edgar Reitz; and producers Bernd Eichinger and Regina Ziegler.

The nominees for the 2024 German Film Awards will be unveiled March 19.