Films

2026, 120 min
by Yulia Lokshina

In one of the poorest regions of Paraguay lies Caazapá, the “city of magic and legends”. Here, two young Paraguayan students are searching for happiness, gold and a magic bird. Behind the fences of a gated community, European dropouts are seeking freedom, healing and salvation from Armageddon – for themselves and their savings. Separating them are 12 kilometres of red-earth road which transforms into a quagmire every rainy season. Around them hovers the humid heat and choruses of cicadas. Step by step, the film explores the new community of settlers and the local population; the camera drifts through construction sites, schools, treatment rooms and shooting ranges, gazes up at the sky and into the internet. While the newcomers experience turf wars and loss, the locals follow their own myths which hark back to the country’s missionary and colonial history. They all have a version of paradise. Source of Synopsis

Germany 2026, 16 min
by Vika Kirchenbauer

At a time when elements of fascisation are becoming ever more apparent, ever more pervasive, artist Vika Kirchenbauer takes a personal look at what is in the air in present-day Germany. This Suffocating Now witnesses the historical present as a condition marked by vectors of violence that have continuously and habitually existed, and puts its focus on the fault lines that have most explicitly exposed the illiberal underbelly of a liberal state and society in recent years: Palestine solidarity as well as queer and trans rights. Drawing from a vast variety of source material, the 16-minute essay film flows in an uneven rhythm through still and moving imagery. Observations from the past three years – such as the increased police presence and recurring police violence, which Kirchenbauer captures from her balcony in Berlin – are viewed within a broader German historical framework. Over mundane images of her home improvement efforts, the artist problematises her own social ascent to becoming a university professor and civil servant. This personal reflection serves as an entry point to addressing the intimate relation between state and contemporary art in the German cultural system as a whole. Source of Synopsis

2026, 14 min
by Pavel Mozhar, Pavel Mozhar

An abandoned GDR factory. More than 400 dusty job application letters from the years 2004 to 2008 lie scattered in the cellar of the administrative building. Alongside the traditional phrases of a covering letter, the documents contain descriptions of personal circumstances and memories. The wishes of the applicants, as well as their fears and pain, are laid bare in their effort to find a place in the free market economy. A documentary contemplation of the individual behind the workforce. Source of Synopsis

2025, 14 min
by Daniel Asadi Faezi, Mila Zhluktenko

In 1970, an entire small town was built in Munich for the Summer Olympics. In addition to the subway station, stadium, indoor swimming pool and housing estate, the largest shopping center in Europe at the time - the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum - was also built. Many migrant workers, so-called guest workers, are employed on the construction site. 2016: Nine people are murdered in a right-wing terrorist attack at the Olympia shopping center. All the victims come from families with migrant backgrounds. 1982: Sohrab Shahid Saless, an Iranian director, makes the film Recipient Unknown in response to the rapidly increasing racism in Germany. In the film, people repeatedly walk past houses, walls and facades smeared with right-wing extremist slogans. The colors flare up brightly and then fade again. In retrospect is an attempt to look back and find connections in the history of a place.

Germany 2025, 97 min
by Martina Priessner

Thirty years after the racist attacks in Mölln, survivor İbrahim Arslan discovers hundreds of forgotten letters of solidarity. The film follows him and his family in their struggle to foster a new, victim-centred culture of remembrance. [75 BERLINALE Panorama]With Hava Arslan, İbrahim Arslan, Namık Arslan, Yeliz Burhan.

Germany 2025, 19 min
by Juliane Jaschnow, Stefanie Schroeder

The future of humanity’s precarious legacy is discussed in relation to issues of location in an endless online conference with 122 participants from civil society. The experts all agree: stones are more reliable than politics. A partly three-dimensional film about the search for the German-German nuclear waste repository, between warning signs, feedback loops and communication problems, glowing flocks of birds and the area between sign and object. A peace steamship cruises among Moselle vineyards – past the NATO nuclear weapons base, past missed climate goals. The Last Generation and the one before that do not meet. “We’re in a climate catastrophe. Does it take mashed potatoes on a painting for you to listen?” A praying mantis transformed into a stereoscopic pre-cyborg gazes into a shifted past. A decommissioned nuclear reactor is turned into an all-inclusive amusement park in the Lower Rhine region. There is still no final repository for highly radioactive waste in Germany, but “how should those who come after us be warned? Isn’t there also a right to forget?” Source of Synopsis

2024, 95 min
by Petra Hoffmann

On July 19, 1979, the Sandinista People’s Revolution in Nicaragua overthrew the brutal dictator Somoza and made the world dream. The construction of a new, more social and just society “between the blocks” seemed possible. Tens of thousands from all over the world travel to the small Central American country to support the young government and rebuild the plundered country.From what was then West Germany alone, over 15,000 supporters made their way to the small Central American country. In international brigades, they harvested coffee and cotton, built schools, kindergartens and health centers to rebuild the maltreated country. The purchase of “Nica coffee” becomes a symbol of international solidarity with the country. The Contra, which is supported by Somoza supporters and the USA, attempts to overthrow the revolution and restore the old balance of power. The civil war costs the lives of 50,000 Nicarguans and German “reconstruction helpers” are also kidnapped and killed by the Contra in the 1980s.And then the unbelievable happens: in April 2018, students protested against the former revolutionary hero and current president Daniel Ortega. Over 400 people were shot dead by paramilitaries. The country sinks into a bloodbath. Ortega’s international supporters are also increasingly being targeted. They have been collecting money for projects in Nicaragua for 45 years. Today, they fear for their lives and are fleeing the country. Those who remain no longer dare to raise their voices against the former revolutionary hero.

2024, 78 min
by Kamal Aljafari

During the military intervention in Lebanon in the summer of 1982, the IDF seized the archive collection of photos and film from the Palestine Research Center in Beirut. Kamal Aljafari reclaims these images, which have been stored by the Israeli army and Ministry of Defense, thwarting this attempt to erase a people deprived of their visual memory. Reel B75-92 shows scenes of orange-picking in Qalandia in 1957, which, according to the Hebrew description, are images of “terrorists”… They come from a collection of films and photos that were kept at the Palestine Research Centre in Beirut, until it was looted by the Israeli Army during the invasion of Southern Lebanon in 1982, and transferred to the archives of the Hebrew state's army and Ministry of Defense. It was only in the 2010s that academic circles - in Tel Aviv, in particular - began to question the aims of this systematic plundering of the entire Palestinian visual memory, which became war booty in part renamed for ideological reasons: the occupying power de facto ensuring control of the captured material. In A Fidai Film, Kamal Aljafari(An Unusual Summer, VdR 2020) turns this primordial plundering against those who perpetrated it. By revitalizing these lost images through his vibrant editing process, he unleashes the subversive power of a counter-narrative that has been erased over the decades, portraying life in Palestine before and after 1948 - particularly during the British mandate of the 1920s-1930s, when the tangible signs of future spoliation, humiliation and violence were already apparent. The Palestinian filmmaker thus meditates with a unique space-time depth of field on the fate of images produced by a people doubly dispossessed, both of its land, and of its history. [55 VdR catalogue, Emmanuel Chicon]

Germany, Canada 2024, 90 min
by Larry Weinstein

In early 2023, filmmaker Larry Weinstein set out to make a documentary about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It was supposed to be about how far we have come in the two hundred years since it was written. But when world events pull Larry into his own film, the question becomes a deeply personal one. BEETHOVEN'S NINE is a documentary about music, but also about war and hope. It follows nine unique individuals, including Ukrainian musicians, a deaf composer, a Polish rock star, a best-selling author, a legendary cartoonist and Weinstein himself, as they try to better understand the legacy of Beethoven’s Ninth, the composer’s own struggles, the inspiration music can provide and how humanity continues to look for hope even in the darkest times.With: Gabriela Lena Frank, Keri-Lynn Wilson & The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, Brodka, Charles M. Schulz, Leonard Bernstein, Franz Kranke, Steven Pinker, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

Germany 2024, 92 min
by Johannes Blume

Berlin is teetering on the edge of complete gentrification. The punk movement is fading, and the remaining left autonomous and anti-fascist spaces are facing an existential threat. Gentrification jeopardizes their very existence, eradicating the once vast diversity in Berlin’s urban landscape.The capitalistic structures driving gentrification prioritize individual wealth and financial growth, undermining the importance of solidarity. The squatter scene — or the heritage of it — is the antidote. House communities live in and share what would normally be considered personal possessions: the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room — everything is communal. Activities and conflicts are resolved through consensus, and interaction with others is inevitable. Living in a house community is a full-time commitment, a synthesis of people, work, materials, and history.BERLIN EVICTION aims to rediscover the relevant values of the subculture for today’s society. We engage with people who have a rich history and are willing to speak candidly on camera, free from masks and control. We explore places and individuals that have repeatedly captured the attention of the national and international press due to their fight against the system and eviction, such as Rigaer Straße, Liebig 34, Syndikat, Drugstore, and many more. The imminent evictions of Potse and Köpi Wagenplatz, both iconic symbols of the autonomous and punk scene, serve as the pivotal narrative structure of the film, emphasizing the scene’s ongoing struggle throughout the years.MAX OPHÜLS PRIZE: BEST FILM MUSIC"Quotation from the film: "We had our time and now it's over." Music plays a very important role in this film, it is an expression of protest, anger, sadness and transports the content of the film. With a convincing interweaving of original music and film score, the film tells of the almost lost struggle for freedom beyond conventions and beyond capitalist constraints." say the members of the jury Jide Tom Akinleminu, Wolf-Maximilian Liebich, Andrina Mrancikar

Germany 2024, 145 min
by Irina Heckmann

2017 – I am travelling to Russia with a German tour group. I take the diary of Wehrmacht soldier Buff, killed in action in 1942 when he tried to give first aid to a Russian soldier, as my travel reading. Our itinerary intersects with places where he fought. I grew up in Russia. My grandmother toiled in Stalin's camps. 2022 – the conflict that Russia's attack on Ukraine triggered in me runs through the film. The journey to Russia was characterised by encounters between people whose parents' or grandparents' had common experiences – those of the Second World War. In brief moments of rapprochement, many questions remain unanswered – especially about the purpose of war.

2024, 27 min
by Boris Dewjatkin

The film directs the viewer's attention to the 'Museum of the Inconspicuous', which unveils itself on the urban material. The material becomes a medium and an impactful protagonist. The narrator uses his experience of the urban space of Berlin to describe a subjective paradise in which man-made systems of order are repeatedly overwritten by the chaotic force. A homage to chaos, inconspicuous signs and the city as palimpsest.

Germany, Italy 2024, 90 min
by Andreas Pichler

Europe’s largest bear rewilding project was successful in resetlling brown bears in the Italian Alps. While most locals supported the conservation project in the beginning, fear and anger prevail after a series of attacks on humans. Interweaving breathtaking and rarely seen footage of wild bears and interviews with rangers and locals, the film taps into the heated debate over what the return of the bears means for rural communities. Can humans and bears truly coexist? How do we balance conservation with human safety?

USA, Germany, Denmark 2024, 113 min
by Connie Field

Three brave women are fighting to expose the corruption and incremental destruction of democracy in Viktor Orbán's Hungary – a white nationalist regime that is the envy of authoritarian movements around the world. Few politicians in the 21st century have been as corrupt and adept at undermining democracy as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Orbán is a hero to his country’s Christian conservative population, and a role model for the right-wing political movement in Europe and for Donald Trump in the US. Orbán takes careful, methodical steps to dismantle Hungarian democratic institutions while maintaining his popularity with a majority of citizens. Oscar-nominated director Connie Field follows three courageous women – opposition politician Timea, journalist Babett and nurse Nikoletta (Niko) – who fight tirelessly to expose the lies and corruption embedded in Orbán’s government. But they face a well-funded and sophisticated opposition in Orbán’s ultra-conservative Fidesz party, which has a strong influence on voters and has already changed key democratic constitutional laws to further cement one-party rule. [21 CPH:DOX]

Germany, France 2024, 216 min
by Guillaume Cailleau, Ben Russell

Taking its title from the tactical protest strategy of the same name – "an action that seeks to achieve an end directly and by the most effective means" – DIRECT ACTION is a contemporary portrait of one of the most important militant activist communities in France – a 150-person strong rural collective that survived multiple violent eviction attempts by the French state, successfully resisted an international airport expansion project, created an autonomous zone from 2012-2018, and spawned a remarkable new ecological movement in 2021. Through a collaborative and uniquely immersive observational approach, DIRECT ACTION documents the everyday of a diverse ecosystem of activists, squatters, anarchists, farmers and government-labeled 'eco-terrorists' – so as to better understand how the success of a radical protest movement can offer a path through the climate crisis facing us all."The jury wants to salut the very patient and non judgement dedicated approach. We deeply enjoyed the quality of observation of this radical film." Tizza Covi, member of the jury said at the award ceremony.

Germany 2024, 90 min
by Richard C. Schneider

The state of Europe is bad. Right-wing populists are coming ever closer to power or have already taken it over. The fatal thing about this is that we only seem to realize, that a state is becoming autocratic, reactionary or even a dictatorship when it is almost too late. In this two-part documentary, we will look at Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and France, four countries that have already embarked on the path to illiberal democracy. What were or are the strategies used in these countries to destroy democracy - and do these steps possibly also serve as a blueprint for other countries?RISE OF THE POPULISTSRight-wing populists are on the rise around the world and are jeopardising liberal democracies. The issues they use to campaign are always similar: against migrants, against elites, in favour of the nation. Using the Netherlands and France as examples, the film shows how successful right-wing populists are in gaining power. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders was able to form a governing coalition, while in France, Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National party won the European elections and also made gains in the national parliamentary elections. Le Pen wants to win the presidential elections in 2027. The succession of crises is making people increasingly insecure and looking for simple answers: Islamist terror since 9/11, the economic crisis in 2008, the influx of refugees in 2015, the Covid crisis, the war in Ukraine and now the crisis in the Middle East are making people increasingly nervous as they see their prosperity and peaceful lives under threat. Right-wing populists are exploiting this situation by creating enemy stereotypes against which they want to defend and protect their respective nations.EROSIN FROM WITHINWhere right-wing populists are already in power, it is clear how they are eroding democracies from within. They take over democratic institutions and render them meaningless. Using Hungary and Italy as examples, the film shows how right-wing populists operate when in power. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán set the script from 2010 onwards: He changed the constitution, disempowered the judiciary and ruined the free press. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is now trying to do the same. This raises questions for all democratic parties in Europe: Are they able to stand together against the populist threat? Can they make the people of Europe a political offer that takes their concerns and fears into account and thus win back those who have not yet drifted ideologically to the far right in favour of democracy?

Germany 2024, 70 min
by Lara Milena Brose

August 2021. The world watches as the Taliban come back to power in Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of people flee. Many of them end up trapped in the non-EU state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.Like Nahid, a 15-year-old girl who is stranded in this nowhere place after a nerve-wracking flight from Herat. The voice messages from home increasingly sound like a distant echo. But there is no time for nostalgia in this daily life between illegality and pushbacks. There is just one goal: get her family away from this ramshackle camp. Luckily, there are people like Ferida and the shady but good-hearted coffee shop owner Elvir in town.Ferida lives right at the border and as she watches people return humiliated from their attempts to cross the border, memories of her own past slowly come back to her.While Ferida loses herself in reminiscence, Nahid discovers that the cycle of war and loss connects her to the place more than she expected.

Germany 2024, 155 min
by Christoph Hübner, Gabriele Voss

The age of coal is coming to an end. Since long time, slowly and definately. Prosper/Haniel in Bottrop is the last coalmine to close in Germany. 40 years ago we started a film cycle there: THE CHRONICLE OF THE PROSPER COLLIERY AND ITS SETTLEMENT EBEL. About history, work and everyday life. With the closure of the last colliery, we are going there again and shoot one last film. 3 years of work, shooting  and editing. How does one live with the end of something that has shaped one’s life for generations? What is lost, what remains and what changes? A film in which the end is not the end and the future has already begun.

Germany, USA 2024, 87 min
by Hans Block, Moritz Riesewieck

Startups are using AI to create avatars that allow relatives to talk with their loved ones after they have died. An exploration of a profound human desire and the consequences of turning the dream of immortality into a product."I wanted to see if he was okay," explains Christi, one of the users of Project December. With this innovative software, users can communicate with a virtual version of the deceased through a chatbot that simulates the dead person’s conversation patterns. Hers was an attempt to check on her first love. Others may simply miss someone, seek permission to move on, or want to rid themselves of guilt.Little is known about the effects that this kind of generative AI might have on our brains, hearts, and wallets. The filmmakers, Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck (THE CLEANERS, 2018 Sundance Film Festival), do not claim to have the answers, but instead bring up various emotional and moral complexities we should be aware of. Eternal You poses important questions about algorithmic immortality, and the need to take a closer look at our future 'digital remains.' — AT [source sundance catalogue 2024]

2024, 29 min
by Emil Silvester Ahlhelm, Konradin Schuchter

In FAHNENFLUCHT the focus is on the Ukrainian-Russian war. If you’re considered a man, you have only two options in war: stay and fight or leave to protect your life. Not everyone wants to sacrifice their life for their homeland, and everyone should have the right to choose. [64KFF PR]

Germany 2024, 90 min
by Klaus Tümmler

One of the largest forest fires in Germany in recent decades raged near the town of Treuenbrietzen in August 2018. The fire destroyed almost 350 hectares of forest. Climate change and drought have long been making themselves felt in Brandenburg's monotonous pine forests. Over five years, from the first day of the fire, the camera follows various events on the land. The central question for the future is: What should the forest of tomorrow look like here, but also elsewhere? The Pyrophob scientific research project is launched with the aim of developing more fire-resistant forests. The wolf and other animals reclaim their former habitat over time. Will everything be okay?

Germany 2024, 15 min
by Bernadette Hauke

There is a lot of garbage on the bottom of the sea. Freddy has seen this during his dives. He wants to salvage the old nets that fishing boats have lost in the Baltic Sea, because they are a danger to marine animals, which get tangled up in them and die. Freddy trains to salvage these ghost nets so that he can clean up a piece of the sea aboard the special ship SEEKUH with diving professionals.

Germany 2024, 94 min
by Niloufar Taghizadeh

Once a pop icon, then 20 years of house arrest – and finally an unexpected comeback. The moving story of Iranian singer Googoosh makes her a voice of resistance. We accompany her on her farewell tour.The singer and actress Googoosh has been an iconic pioneer of Iranian pop culture for over 50 years. Her father, an acrobat and artist, already put her on stage at the age of three and she quickly became a child star. Googoosh’s singing inspired Iranian composers to create a new style of pop music, mixing Persian poetry with blues, jazz, Latin, rock and disco music. Her chansons became international hits, and she was a cult figure on the Iranian pop scene in the 1970s. Under the religious regime of Khomeini, Googoosh’s career then came to an abrupt halt in the 1980s when she was put under house arrest and banned from performing. This documentary tells of her eventful life and her astonishing international comeback in the 1990s. It accompanies Googoosh on her farewell tour in 2022. When the young girl Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the Iranian vice squad in September 2022, Googoosh demonstrated public solidarity with the struggle of the young generation of Iranians rebelling against the regime. She is today a symbol of hope and resistance, her life a testimony to the Iranian struggle for freedom and humanity.

Germany 2024, 92 min
by Daniel Burkholz

Heart of Darkness tells the story of the terror attacks on Israel carried out by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. Moreover, the film also tells the story of the aftermath of these attacks and of Israel's war against Hamas.When Hannah Arendt reported from the Adolf Eichmann Court Case, she introduced the term Banality of Evil. We think that was only partly correct: It's the Heart of Darkness. We started with the making of the film shortly after October 7, 2023 and we finished it by the end of 2023, to make a contribution in support of the hostages abducted by the Hamas terrorists. (Photos Gaza Border and Tel Aviv Under Attack by Israel Defence Forces, CC BY-NC 2.0)