Dear visitors

This website predominantly reflects current research results pertaining to the German film festival landscape. Growing international interest has prompted us to also offer the contents successively in English. We appreciate your understanding, should you encounter any content that is still only in German.
Many thanks for your interest, The filmfestival-studien.de Team

Save the date Frankfurt April 19-21: 3rd Congress Future German Film and 100 Years of Frankfurt Positions

Edgar Reitz, Irene von Alberti and Frieder Schlaich (Filmgalerie 451), Dominik Graf, Alfred Holighaus, Wolfgang M. Schmitt, Moritz Baßler, Sophie Linnenbaum – all of them and many other well-known personalities of the domestic film and cinema landscape will come to Frankfurt between April 19 and 21, where the Zukunft Deutscher Film congress will take place for the third time. Parallel to the 16th LICHTER Filmfest Frankfurt International and under the

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Cinematic positions outside the comfort zone

„The desire to start from scratch is audible everywhere“ emphasizes Carlo Chatrian, artistic director of the Berlinale in his greeting. The new voices of German filmmakers in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section prove that this new beginning has long been taking place. They confront us with their stories, narrative styles and aesthetics. An interview (in German) with the new director of the section Jenni Zylka at Kino-Zeit.de shows how the

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Cinema of Care. Who cares about cinema? 

We care about people of diverse cultures, we care about the access of everybody, we care about genderequality, we care. But who cares about cinema-about the film theater, about the programmes, about the cultural practice. In the opening conference of the „Week of Criticism“, moderated by Julia Bee and Devika Girish, Claire Denis, Marek Hovorka, Isabell Lorey, Elke Marhöfer and Abby Sun will discuss these questions. On Wednesday, 15 Feb, at

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Content versus Film – the next discussion of the Akademie der Künste

As in previous years, host Jeanine Meerapfel and moderator Andreas Kilb get us in the mood for the Berlinale by dealing with a currently pressing topic of film culture and film industry alike. This time Dominik Graf and Thomas Heise, Nicolette Krebitz and Carolin Schmitz enrich the panel when it comes to talking about the essence of cinema, about what makes films unique and answering questions like What makes good

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Initiative Zukunft Kino+Film presents concept for reforming German film funding

Based on the conviction of a large part of the film and cinema landscape that German film is facing an economic and above all artistic existential crisis, the Initiative, Zukunft, Kino+Film (IZK+Film) has presented a policy paper for the reorganization and simplification of the complex film funding system in Germany. Three guiding principles underlie this paper: in addition to the effort to increase social diversity as well as artistic multiplicity,

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The European Short Film Network grows by two partner festivals, initiates a permanent streaming platform and commits to a sustainability codex

Founded by the four European film festivals Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (DE), Go Short Festival in Nijmegen (NL), Short Waves Festival in Poznan (PL) and Vienna Shorts (AT) in 2018, IndieLisboa International Film Festival (PT) and Uppsala Kortfilmfestival (SE) now join the European Short Film Network. With this, the ESFN is expanding its mission to support and promote European short films in two more countries. This is done not only through

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IDFA DocLab publishes Report on Findings in Creating Community in Hybrid Festivals

While hybrid film festivals in 2021 and 2022 had proven increasingly valuable in providing access to new festival-goers both onsite and online, and in the process contributing to a greater sense of democracy, addressing and creating community in hybrid film festivals had proven increasingly difficult. Questions of how to create meaningful connections between online and face-to-face festival attendees, artists, and works also became more and more relevant. The new report

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With SMART7, the next alliance of European film festivals is launched to drive the sector forward.

With the aim of further professionalizing the film festival sector, 7 European film festivals have now joined forces under the Smart7 label. Among them are the New Horizons IFF (Poland), IndieLisboa (Portugal), the Thessaloniki IFF (Greece), the Transilvania IFF (Romania), FILMADRID (Spain), the Reykjavik IFF (Iceland) and Vilnius IFF Kino Pavasaris (Lithuania). Following the merger of the Europa Film Festivals, of which Filmfest Hamburg is a member, and MIOB (moving

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What (or where) is European cinema? one of the central questions at many film festivals.

Whereas last May the Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt International explored these questions in breadth with its second edition of the Zukunft Deutscher Film conference in a Forum Europa, the IDFA followed up in November with its first Europa conference. In cooperation with Arte, the conference kicked off IDFA’s extensive industry program. Introduced by a keynote address from Christian Salmon, the event focused specifically on the influences of streaming services on filmmaking

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Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt publishes study on Frankfurt film festivals

Film festivals fulfill numerous functions: They enrich the cultural offerings of the city of Frankfurt. They represent the international film scene and create access to films that do not find a place in the regular cinema program. They are an important forum for social discourse and invite filmmakers, professional visitors and film enthusiasts to Frankfurt. These are some of the findings that were examined in more detail in the context

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