Detlev wins Germany's top short-film prize for a forced-perspective, almost-all-in-camera parking lot

Ferdinand Ehrhardt's diploma film Detlev -- a silicone-puppet short about a lonely man's nightly petrol-station ritual -- won the 2025 Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis (Germany's national short-film award, a "golden Lola") in the animation category, per the Filmakademie's own announcement; the win automatically qualifies the film for 2027 Academy Award consideration. Nearly three years in the making with a crew of over 40, the film's puppets were built by Arne Hain (who has previously worked with Phil Tippett) and shot by directors of photography Sebastian Ganschow and Leoni Gora on a mixed-scale, forced-perspective petrol-station set. Ehrhardt has said the production used only a single green-screen shot in the entire film, keeping forced perspective and every other effect in-camera; the durable forced-perspective fact is folded into the Wiki's forced-perspective-miniatures page. Detlev also won the Audience Grand Prix for Stop Motion Animation at StopTrik 2025.