The excitement was at fever pitch again and speculation rife in the run-up to this year’s festival: Cannes’ line-up has a diverse programme on offer again. The 78th Festival de Cannes will take place this year from May 13 to 24, 2025. We are delighted that the German film by Mascha Schilinski has been selected to screen in the Main Competition and other eagerly awaited German productions by such filmmakers as Fatih Akin and Christian Petzold will have their premieres in Cannes.
Festival President Iris Knobloch and Festival Director Thierry Frémaux had already announced the official line-up in the main categories on Thursday, April 10. German director Mascha Schilinski has been invited to present her second feature film SOUND OF FALLING in the Main Competition. The drama tells the story of four women from different time periods whose lives are eerily intertwined. Each of them spends their childhood or youth on the same four-sided farmstead in the Altmark, but as they roam their own present, traces of the past - unspoken fears, repressed traumas, and buried secrets - reveal themselves to them.
The 19 other films in the competition also include seven productions with German participation.
Fatih Akin's AMRUM is also being eagerly awaited. The historical drama, which will be screening in the Cannes Première sidebar, sees Akin bringing Hark Bohm’s memories of his childhood and teenage years to the cinema screen in his youth memories of Hark Bohm in his 12th work as a director. Akin also co-wrote the screenplay with Bohm. The film follows the journey of a boy who gradually unravels a dark family secret with each day of the last week of the Second World War.
Christian Petzold's film MIROIRS NO. 3 will be screened in the independent Quinzaine des cinéastes sidebar. This film completes Petzold’s trilogy which he began with UNDINE and AFIRE about elemental spirits in German Romanticism. The drama centres on a music student who loses her boyfriend in a car accident. When she tries to find her way back into life with another family, she realises that something is also wrong with this family as well.
Polina Piddubna’s animated film MY GRANDMOTHER IS A SKYDIVER explores the life of her grandmother who hails from Central Asia, with a focus on the time after the start of the war in Ukraine. The short film can be seen in the La Cinef section.
Another German short is screening in the Short Film Competition of the Semaine de la Critique. CRITICAL CONDITION by Mila Zhluktenko addresses the fate of the Ukrainian diaspora in the past and present, inspired by the events surrounding the life and murder of the Ukrainian writer and politician Lev Rebet. This section will also be presenting EROGENESIS, a project bringing video, sculpture, sound and painting together. The director Xandra Popescu combines two recurring themes of science fiction in her film: the extinction of species and the possibility of creating life artificially.
The impACT Lab industry programme will also be held at the same time as the festival. Two producers nominated by German Films - Katharina Mumper and Sophia Stier - will be taking part this year. The impACT Lab gathers forward-thinking experts to lead a series of transformative workshops and group sessions. This programme is an opportunity for the participating producers to launch their projects in the global marketplace.
German Films will also be in Cannes again this year. The German Pavilion (Village International Riviera, Pavilion 128), in cooperation with the FFA, BKM and Focus Germany (FilmFernsehFonds Bayern (FFF), Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Hessen Film & Medien, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, MFG Medien- und Filmgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg, Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM), MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, MV Filmförderung and nordmedia - Film- und Mediengesellschaft Niedersachsen/Bremen) will again be serving as a platform for filmmakers to meet and exchange ideas during this year’s festival.
