| From February 13 to 23, the Berlin International Film Festival took place, presenting over 240 films. Under the new leadership of Tricia Tuttle, the Berlinale invited audiences and the industry to its 75th anniversary edition this year. A record-breaking number of 67 German productions and co-productions were screened in the sections of one of the three largest international film festivals, including the opening film THE LIGHT by Tom Tykwer, the Competition participants WHAT MARIELLE KNOWS by Frédéric Hambalek and YUNAN by Ameer Fakher Eldin, and Conztanze Klaue's PUNCHING THE WORLD in Perspectives, the new first fiction feature competition section. The European Film Market 2025 was successful as well. Over a period of eight days, around 10,000 representatives of the international film and media industries – primarily producers, buyers and sales agents, distributors and financiers – came together to network, exchange, inform themselves and do business. The German Films booth #18 which we managed together with Focus Germany and FFA was very well attended every day and, as in previous years, became an important contact point for visitors and festival as well as market participants. On the Saturday of the first festival weekend, we hosted our reception. Around 200 guests, including the makers of participating films and industry experts, came together at the Essenza restaurant to exchange ideas. Awards for German productions and co-productions at the Berlinale: Competition
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution
The creative ensemble of THE ICE TOWER by Lucile Hadžihalilović (FR/DE, Sutor Kolonko) Generation Kplus
Special Mention for ZIRKUSKIND by Anna Koch, Julia Lemke (Flare Film) --------- Guild Film Prize
Special Mention for WHAT MARIELLE KNOWS (WAS MARIELLE WEISS) by Frédéric Hambalek (Walker+Worm, Frédéric Hambalek Produktion) Label Europa Cinemas
HYSTERIA by Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay (filmfaust) Amnesty International Film Award
THE MOELLN LETTERS (DIE MÖLLNER BRIEFE) by Martina Priessner (inselfilm produktion) Heiner Carow Prize
PALLIATIVE CARE UNIT (PALLIATIVSTATION) by Philipp Döring Prize of AG Kino – Gilde – Cinema Vision 14plus
PATERNAL LEAVE by Alissa Jung (DE/IT, MFP) Panorama Audience Award
THE MOELLN LETTERS (DIE MÖLLNER BRIEFE) by Martina Priessner (inselfilm produktion) | |
| Corresponding to the anniversary edition of the festival, we were able to celebrate another anniversary: 10 years – 10 editions of FACE TO FACE WITH GERMAN FILMS. And again, this year’s selection of outstanding talents was introduced to the international film industry at the Berlinale. FACE TO FACE WITH GERMAN FILMS 2025 – THE FILMMAKERS, features unique, impressive, and diverse individuals. Each of them has found a very personal and interesting path into the film industry, collectively illustrating the vibrant and diverse nature of work and creativity within the film sector. The FACES 2025 stand for the excellent reputation that German film and series productions enjoy internationally, and they are eager to present their work at festivals around the world. This year’s selection extends from actors Aaron Altaras, Lea Drinda and Thea Ehre, to writer-directors Leonie Krippendorff and Mariko Minoguchi, as well as director Mala Reinhardt and director of photography Tim Kuhn. They are following in the footsteps of such respected filmmakers as internationally renowned stars Sandra Hüller, Christian Friedel, Burhan Qurbani, Saskia Rosendahl, Alexander Fehling, Julia Jentsch, Jonas Nay, Jannis Niewöhner, Sara Fazilat, Soleen Yusef and Eva Trobisch, who have all been part of the campaign since it launched in 2016. At the Berlinale press panel, the trailer of this year's FACE TO FACE campaign was released, and the FACE TO FACE ambassadors discussed the current landscape of the German film and TV industry, and the roles they play in it, with Deadline host Diana Lodderhose. | |
| For the 28th edition of the programme European Shooting Stars, a jury of industry experts assembled by the European Film Promotion (EFP) selected ten of the most gifted young European acting talents to be presented to the film industry, public and international press during the Berlinale Festival this week. The 2025 Shooting Star from Germany is Devrim Lignau – congratulations! The goal of the programme is to build a network in the international film industry by taking part in a tailor-made schedule that includes extensive press work and meetings with international casting directors, talent agents and producers. The five-day programme culminated in the glamorous awards ceremony on Monday, February 17 at the Berlinale Palast, where the talents received with the blue-star EUROPEAN SHOOTING STARS Award in front of an international audience of industry professionals. | |
| In cooperation with the Goethe Institute and the German Embassy in Rome, the Festival del Cinema Tedesco will take place from March 20 to 23, 2025 at the Cinema Quattro Fontane in Rome, Italy. Here, Italian audiences can experience and enjoy new German films.
The opening film ANOTHER GERMAN TANK STORY by Jannis Alexander Kiefer will kick things off. After several screenings the director will discuss his film in Q&As with the audience. More filmmakers will also be attending the Festival del Tedesco in Rome, including Isaac Martínez, Thomas von Steinaecker and Chiara Fleischhacker. Full list of films at the Festival del Cinema Tedesco:
ANOTHER GERMAN TANK STORY by Jannis Alexander Kiefer
ELLBOW by Asli Örzaslan
LUIGI NONO - DER KLANG DER UTOPIE by Thomas von Steinaecker
GOTTESKINDER by Frauke Lodders
TELL THEM ABOUT US by Rand Beiruty
MUENTER & KANDINSKY by Marcus O. Rosenmüller
VENA by Chiara Fleischhacker
NEXT GENERATION SHORT TIGER 2024 by various directors | |
| This year’s 47th International Short Film Festival Clermont-Ferrand (France) was a very special year for the German short film industry: Nine German films and co-productions were presented in the three competition sections, another eight shorts were screened in the special programs. The short film project DEEP SEA BLUE by Hilke Rönnfeldt and the XR project LALABYRINTH by Pedro Harres were selected for the Euro Connection Co-Production Forum. In the International Competition, MY BROTHER, MY BROTHER by Abdelrahman Dnewar & Saad Dnewar (EG/FR/DE, Milkman Films) received a Special Mention of the Jury, while in the Lab Competition SHIP OF FOOLS by Alia Haju (DE/LB, Paradoks Film) was awarded with the Special Jury Prize and the Special Mention of the Student Jury. Together with the AG Kurzfilm, German Films organized a booth at the film market where it provided information about the German films in the festival’s selection and the 30 films added recently to the online catalogue, 9 of them were presented also at the traditional market screening MATINÉE ALLEMANDE. The new edition of the touring program EMERGING ARTISTS was screened at the market as well.
The 20th anniversary edition of the German-French cooperation program SOIRÉE ALLEMANDE celebrated its premiere to enthusiastic response of a packed cinema. Six new films representing the diversity of German short filmmaking were selected from around 450 German submissions to the festival: The narrative shorts AT HOME I FEEL LIKE LEAVING by Simon Maria Kubiena, MOTHER IS A NATURAL SINNER by Boris Hadžija & Hoda Taheri, NINE DAYS IN AUGUST by Ella Knorz, the experimental documentaries ACCIDENTAL ANIMALS by Leila Fatima Keita & Felix Klee and TUNNELS by Seraina Nyikos & Simon Ostermann, and the animadoc SKY LIKE SILK. FULL OF ORANGES by Betina Kuntzsch. To celebrate the anniversary, the mayor of Clermont-Ferrand welcomed the guests of the reception following the Soirée-screening at the City Hall together with the German Consulate Lyon. The following night, the project partners organized the short film walk "A Wall Is A Screen", in spite of the cold more than 200 guests joined the outdoor screenings culminating in singing together to the classic musical short LE COQ EST MORT by Zoltan Spirandelli. The short film program is a collaboration between AG Kurzfilm, German Films, the International Short Film Festival Clermont-Ferrand, the Goethe Institute Lyon and the Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg and will go on tour as SHORT EXPORT. The program can be booked by the Goethe Institutes and their partners around the globe, it’s available with English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic subtitles. An overview of all German films in Clermont-Ferrand here. | |
| The 7th edition of the short film programme EMERGING ARTISTS – CONTEMPORARY EXPERIMENTAL FILMS AND VIDEO ART FROM GERMANY, presented biennially by the AG Kurzfilm – German Short Film Association together with German Films, celebrated its premiere screening as part of the 38th Stuttgart Filmwinter (January 15-22, 2025). Six current works by artists who approach their themes in an experimental, performative and essayistic way were selected for the programme. New technologies, the climate crisis and gender identity are the central themes of the selected films. Filmmaker Florian Fischer says of the selected artists: “Their works defy clear conceptual classification: they make parasitic use of new technological developments and messages from social media in order to reshape or recontextualise them; they explore the artificiality of digital, floral and animal bodies; they describe the spiritual reappraisal of an ecological disaster and question conventional gender attributions. What unites these artists is their willingness to explore border areas - they set out in search of a new form, an independent visual world or alternative narrative structures”. Filmmaker Tess Marscher (HELA ET AL.) was present at the screening together with jury members Mara Marxsen (Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg), Alfred Rotert (former director of the European Media Art Festival Osnabrück), Giovanna Thiery (Stuttgart Filmwinter) and Anne Turek (AG Kurzfilm). The new programme is available in various formats (DCP, MP4 files) for screening at festivals, galleries, and other cultural institutions. More information here. | |
| German Films and the German Federal Film Board (FFA) annually introduce young talents and their short films to international audiences of professionals through their initiative NEXT GENERATION SHORT TIGER. The 2025 jury, actress Thea Ehre, Alexandra Gramatke (Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg) and Andreas Heidenreich (Kommunales Kino Weiterstadt) met in Berlin on February 11 to screen the submitted films and decide on this year’s selection and the Short Tiger winners. Their decisions will be revealed soon, the new program will premiere on Saturday, April 12 at the 37th Filmfest Dresden and on Tuesday, May 20 as a Market Screening during the Festival de Cannes. | |
| In 2024, 531 German films in 67 countries generated a total box office of 116.2 million Euros and were seen by 15.8 million cinema-goers around the globe. More information and additional figures will soon be available on our website. | |
| The focus of the next session for the English-language KINO! FILM SALON online film club on March 16th will be NORTH FACE by Philipp Stölzl. In 2008 the film celebrated its world premiere on the Piazza Grande at the famous Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland. The gripping adventure movie was the winner of the GERMAN FILM CRITICS AWARDS 2009 for BEST SCREENPLAY and BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY and the winner of two GERMAN FILM AWARDS 2009 - BEST SOUND DESIGN and BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY. Our curator Jim Kolmar's comment on the movie: "In Philipp Stölzl’s striking drama, Johanna Wokalek (BAADER MEINHOF COMPELX) plays Luise, a secretary and greenhorn reporter at a Berlin newspaper in 1936. Not one to take no for an answer, she somehow convinces her bosses to let her cover an intrepid attempt to scale the Eiger by two Alpinists who also happen to be her childhood friends. What follows is an engrossing adventure film, full of startling Alpine vistas and suspenseful climbing sequences, but never losing sight of the human drama at its core. Johanna Wokalek, Benno Fürmann (MERRY CHRISTMAS) and Florian Lukas (GOOD BYE, LENIN) deliver heartfelt performances in a film that combines a classic adventure film with a historical drama charting the years of emerging National Socialism ahead of World War 2. It's a unique mix, and a great example of modern German cinema at its most accessible, exciting and intelligent." RSVP: here Date and time: Sunday, March 16th at 11:00am – 12:00pm PT, 2:00pm – 3:00pm ET, 8:00pm – 9:00pm CET.
Hosted by Jim Kolmar KINO! FILM SALON is a production of Telescope Film, in collaboration with the German Film Office Trailer: here | |
| Episode 74 - March 6, 2025:
Director Mala Reinhardt shared her love for mint-flavored TicTacs, Malaysian curries and reenacting the Jungle book as a kid with us in our current ShortTake episode. The SECOND ATTACK filmmaker is one of German Films’ Face to Face ambassadors 2025. Episode 75 - March 27, 2025:
We had the immense pleasure of talking to actress Thea Ehre – about the random happiness of cleaning one’s apartment, the rejection of decaf coffee, the joy of making short movies and her secret obsession with Trash TV. You can find all of the episodes on our website and wherever podcasts are available. SHORT TAKE on Instagram! | |
| Episode 4 - March 18, 2025:
In this episode we talk to actor Diana Amft. She has received the award for best actress in a comedy series at Monte Carlo TV Festival as well as three German comedy awards. Diana will speak about her actor journey in relation to comedy, what she likes about the comedy genre, and some of her films and series like DOCTOR'S DIARY, KROYMANN and WEISSES ROESSL. You can find all of the episodes on our website and wherever podcasts are available. DEEP DIVE GENRE on Instagram! | |
| Transatlantic Rising Stars Project: Project assignments
The Goethe Institute USA is currently preparing a bid to provide technical assistance to the Transatlantic Rising Stars Project. The Transatlantic Rising Stars Project (TRSP) aims to establish strategic people-to-people programmes in the cultural sector to empower EU creatives to enhance mutual understanding, build trust, and appreciation for EU values and priorities in the US. The TRSP leverages the arts to strengthen transatlantic ties by increasing understanding of EU values, fostering immersive collaborations between European and American artists, and building lasting cultural networks. The GI USA is looking for four Key Experts for the Transatlantic Rising Stars project. Application deadline: March 09, 2025. You can find more information here. Call for submissions - European Genre Forum 2025
The European Genre Forum, a six-month training cycle for emerging European genre filmmakers, is openening its call for submissions for 2025. In three talent labs between July and November, the EGF gives fantastic film projects a boost artistically, businesswise and in understanding their audience potential. The European Genre Forum is a collaboration between the Imagine Fantastic Film Festival in Amsterdam, Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival, and the Black Nights Film
Festival in Tallinn. The call for projects is now open. Submission deadline is March 16, 2025. All information, terms and conditions and the submission form can be found here. | |
| German productions and co-productions at BFI Flare: London, Tampere, Glasgow and Saguenay.. | |
| Awards for German productions and co-productions at Sundance, Rotterdam, Clermont-Ferrand and Berlin. | |
| International releases of German films in March 2025 supported by the German Films Distribution Support program: DYING in Poland (Distributor: Aurora Films, World Sales: The Match Factory, Theatrical Release: March 21, 2025, Grant: 7.000 €)
HOLLYWOODGATE in Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia (Distributor: Beldocs, World Sales: Cinephil, Theatrical Release: March 2025, Grant: 6.000 €)
THE CHAOS SISTERS FEAT. PENGUIN PAUL in North Macedonia (Distributor: Uzengija Dooel, World Sales: The Playmaker Munich, Theatrical Release: March 13, 2025, Grant: 3.000 €)
THE GIRL FROM KÖLN in Switzerland (Distributor: Praesens-Film, World Sales: Alamode, Theatrical Release: March 13, 2025, Grant: 12.900 €)
THE LIGHT in Austria (Distributor: Filmladen Filmverleih, World Sales: Beta Films, Theatrical Release: March 20, 2025, Grant: 11.000 €)
THE LIGHT in Switzerland (Distributor: Filmcoopi, World Sales: Beta Films, Theatrical Release: March 27, 2025, Grant: 14.000 €)
THE PRANK in Austria (Distributor: Luna Filmverleih, World Sales: Picture Tree International, Theatrical Release: March 13, 2025, Grant: 9.000 €)
THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG in Serbia (Distributor: MCF MegaCom film, World Sales: Films Boutique, Theatrical Release: March 20, 2025, Grant: 2.500 €)
THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG in Israel (Distributor: New Cinema, World Sales: Films Boutique, Theatrical Release: March 6, 2025, Grant: 12.000 €)
THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG in Ukraine (Distributor: EPO Molodist, World Sales: Films Boutique, Theatrical Release: March 6, 2025, Grant: 4.490 €) Please note: Correct at time of going to press. Changes may occur at any time. | |
| Contact:
Angela Sonntag (Head of Press & Public Relations) | |
| German Films Service + Marketing GmbH
Herzog-Wilhelm-Straße 16
80331 München/Deutschland Tel +49-89-59 97 87-0
Fax +49-89-59 97 87-30 | |
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