|
Cruise wins award for courage
29/11/2007 09:43 - (SA)
Naomi Kresge
Berlin - US actor Tom Cruise has
won a German film award for his willingness to take risks in his
films, media company Hubert Burda Media said on Wednesday.
The 'courage' award will be presented during the 59th annual
Bambi Awards ceremony in the northern city of Duesseldorf on
Thursday.
The prize committee said Cruise has pursued brave projects
that otherwise would not have been made, including his newest
film, Valkyrie, which details the failed Operation Valkyrie
plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
Cruise plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who tried to
assassinate Hitler with a briefcase bomb on July 20, 1944.
"Tom Cruise is making an international public familiar with
a story that has never before been the theme of a major
Hollywood production: the German resistance against the Third
Reich," the competition jury said in a statement.
Some resistance to Cruise's work in Valkyrie has come from
inside German government ministries.
Film honoured Stauffenberg
The Defence Ministry tried
to ban Cruise from filming at the "Bendlerblock" complex in
Berlin where the conspirators were executed.
They relented after filmmakers persuaded them the movie
would honour Stauffenberg. Cruise filmed at the Bendlerblock and
elsewhere in Berlin this autumn.
Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung initially said he did not
want Cruise to film at the site because the actor is a
Scientologist, which the German government describes as a cult.
The ministry later said they were concerned about preserving the
dignity of the site.
The German media awards are named after the deer statuette
winners receive.
The daughter of one of the first winners said
the figurine looked like the children's storybook character
Bambi.
- Reuters
|
South Africa
