Timetable

The programme for children aged 12+ approaches the theme of solidarity from different perspectives – societal, social, familial. With minimalist aesthetic, Circle uses the simple metaphor of a circle to ask the big question of why we (should?) conform to social norms without reflecting on them, and what role...

The programme for children aged six and over explores cross-generational connections: Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge examines the nature of memories to help his 80-year-old friend who has dementia. Eine Gitarre am Meer also focuses on memories – but even more so on the unifying power of music, which transcends...

The programme for children aged 12+ approaches the theme of solidarity from different perspectives – societal, social, familial. With minimalist aesthetic, Circle uses the simple metaphor of a circle to ask the big question of why we (should?) conform to social norms without reflecting on them, and what role...

The films for kids aged 10+ focus on themes of growth, change and resilience. The atmospheric and poetic Children of the Bird – with its vibrant, childlike animation – depicts the delicate balance between creation and destruction and the complex relationship between man and nature. In Warrior Heart, Vilja...

A message from a friend leaves Pati in shock. After her laptop is stolen, a hacker sends nude photos of her to contacts in her address book. The hacker confronts Pati directly, demanding money in exchange for not distributing the images more widely. In a state of mental turmoil,...

The protagonists in the programme for kids aged eight and above are bold, unconventional and strong-willed. Elisa (Yo Voy Conmigo), Léontine (Léontine en vacances, Le bateau de Léontine) and Adeline (Das Mädchen und die Riesin – Adeline tanzt Krump) each embrace their own form of expressive non-conformity. While Elisa...

Rachid (14+ programme) also struggles with family expectations. Fun-loving and naïve, he stumbles from one white lie to the next, trying to live up to the culturally and religiously influenced expectations of his Moroccan-born parents while searching for a job in his home country of Belgium. Also caught between...

To this day, the remains of tens of thousands of people from former colonies are held in German museums, with little hope of identification or repatriation. For the Tanzanian families Mbao and Kayaa, the theft of their ancestors’ bones – taken to Germany during the colonial era for racist...

The protagonists in these three films are constantly in motion – advancing and retreating, bodies moving in rhythm, or breaking free from it. Movements link the three films, which explore how ideas of nationhood and the history of the queer movement shape our sense of belonging. The programme opens...

Set in rural Assam, this intimate sequel to Village Rockstars (2016) revisits Dhunu, now a determined 17-year-old navigating the hardships of adulthood. Torn between her dreams of becoming a guitarist and the demands of everyday survival, she shoulders the burden of caring for her ailing mother while enduring the...

Set in Angola in 1961, quarry worker Domingos Xavier is a devoted husband and father who likes to play football with his kids after shifts. The film shows a young couple, very much in love, going about their everyday business. Through conversations with work colleagues, Domingos becomes more politicised,...

Love your city – that’s rule number one in Jürgen Wiebicke’s Erste Hilfe für Demokratie-Retter (First Aid for Democracy Saviours). With this popular Specials programme, the city of Dortmund itself becomes the big screen. We are taking our mobile cinema to the city centre and screening films on the...

A message from a friend leaves Pati in shock. After her laptop is stolen, a hacker sends nude photos of her to contacts in her address book. The hacker confronts Pati directly, demanding money in exchange for not distributing the images more widely. In a state of mental turmoil,...

The protagonists in the programme for kids aged eight and above are bold, unconventional and strong-willed. Elisa (Yo Voy Conmigo), Léontine (Léontine en vacances, Le bateau de Léontine) and Adeline (Das Mädchen und die Riesin – Adeline tanzt Krump) each embrace their own form of expressive non-conformity. While Elisa...

Rachid (14+ programme) also struggles with family expectations. Fun-loving and naïve, he stumbles from one white lie to the next, trying to live up to the culturally and religiously influenced expectations of his Moroccan-born parents while searching for a job in his home country of Belgium. Also caught between...

To this day, the remains of tens of thousands of people from former colonies are held in German museums, with little hope of identification or repatriation. For the Tanzanian families Mbao and Kayaa, the theft of their ancestors’ bones – taken to Germany during the colonial era for racist...

Lecture with film clips (English) and discussion (English & German)

»In my presentation I will engage in a ›conversation‹ with the 2023 documentary film Între revoluții (Between Revolutions), directed by Vlad Petri and written together with Lavinia Braniște. The film offers a poetic reflection on the in/visibility of female queer...

Artist and mother Pia Antonia Klinkhammer shares her thoughts on art, self-expression and the struggles for recognition as an artist with art students. Her rebellious paintings – characterised by deliberate breaks with bourgeois conventions – remain largely hidden from public view. However, thanks to the students’ documentation of her...

Based on a performative conversation around a table, Female Walk follows the gradual emancipation of a young woman. Five figures embody the persistent echoes of patriarchal gender norms. Through close observation and self-distancing, the protagonist begins to recognise the structures that extend far beyond the conversation. Her irritation evolves into...

Last Night is a chamber play-like film that explores interpersonal relationships. Set in the near future, a diverse group of people gathers in a long-closed bar to escape the heat and indulge in excessive drinking. What begins as an innocent disco dance evolves into a sentimental polonaise, escalating tensions...

As they walk through the city, Dagmar and Patrick share stories about their lives, articulating clear and powerful thoughts on their love, on racism and ageing. LOVE, AGE, POWER is a portrait of two lovers that inspires hope.

Screening von Meanwhile (Catherine Gund) und HDGDL (Sarah Claire Wray).

MOSAIK captures a city’s cultural diversity in poetic images. Behind windows and walls, people live their lives, pursue their interests and chase their dreams, and the film weaves these narratives into a seamless flow. To mark its 50th anniversary, NRWKS 2024 organised a competition inviting citizens – regardless of...

In mothercity, Dortmund’s ageing urban space becomes an analogy for the ageing female body. Through a poetic stream of consciousness, the film takes viewers on a journey of remembrance, presenting the protagonists’ thoughts while reflecting the deep connection between body and city. Two older women engage in a poignant...

Grasses sway in the wind. A hand with black fingernails picks up a snail. The man taking in the trees, meadows and water with all his senses is widower Walter Thirsk, a city dweller turned farmer. He is a romantic anti-hero, not fully belonging to the village, not really...

Milisuthando Bongela was born in 1985 in Transkei, the first »homeland« set up for Black South Africans, which was declared independent from South Africa in 1976. She grew up in the midst of apartheid, but remained unaware of its existence. Although promoted as an independent state, Transkei was in...

Barbara Morgenstern at work: melodies are hummed, lyrics written and refined, funding applications drafted, rehearsals scheduled and band
discussions planned. Before Morgenstern’s new album is released and performed on stage for the first time, filmmaker Sabine Herpich meticulously documents every step of the musician’s creative process. She portrays art-making as...

The films for children aged four and over are centred around unusual friendships. In The Night Tunnel, a bond is formed when the protagonist digs through the planet, while The Carp and the Child explores an unexpected connection between water and land, reflected in delicate watercolour aesthetics. Ummi und...

The programme for children aged six and over explores cross-generational connections: Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge examines the nature of memories to help his 80-year-old friend who has dementia. Eine Gitarre am Meer also focuses on memories – but even more so on the unifying power of music, which transcends...

The films for kids aged 10+ focus on themes of growth, change and resilience. The atmospheric and poetic Children of the Bird – with its vibrant, childlike animation – depicts the delicate balance between creation and destruction and the complex relationship between man and nature. In Warrior Heart, Vilja...

The films for children aged four and over are centred around unusual friendships. In The Night Tunnel, a bond is formed when the protagonist digs through the planet, while The Carp and the Child explores an unexpected connection between water and land, reflected in delicate watercolour aesthetics. Ummi und...

The films in Panorama's Questions of Form segment expand on innovative techniques while creative methods enhance the classic cinematic experience. This year, we are presenting a 30-year long-term observation. Aysun Bademsoy’s film shows women who remain in search of something. Her documentary approach draws a multi-layered portrait of former...

A short montage from 20 US mainstream films, with all the roles dubbed into German by the same voice actress (Regina Lemnitz). In each sequence, the characters, played by Black actresses and actors, address the act of speaking or the voice itself: I have to talk to you. You’d...

Some still remember how the cicadas in Nagasaki fell silent in the first few minutes after the atomic bomb was dropped. An eerie, deadly silence.
Eighty years later, their chirping rises once again over the green hills of the Japanese island. At the foot of these hills, we follow Noriko...

Resilience in the image. The filmmakers explore artistic possibilities for dealing with racist archive images from the colonial era.

In cooperation with Theater im Depot.

This film cautiously captures the spirit of Khartoum’s youth as they resist a dictatorial regime, fighting above all for freedom and the right to control their own lives. A chorus of voices emerges: dancing bodies moving through the night to music from portable speakers, rising up in defiance. It...

A car is ablaze. Standing on the roadside is a family, in a state of shock. A second family drives past in an expensive car without stopping. They have just collected the father’s grown-up French son from the airport. All this takes place without a word being spoken, while...

Sometimes, it’s the chance encounters that create connections of irresistible appeal – moments that arise in liminal spaces, during periods of transition or on imagined journeys through time, when we must choose how the story will continue.
The title of this short film programme is borrowed from Maya Ziadé’s film...

Musician and activist Moor Mother, in a haunting voice superposing samples of British-Iraqi soprano Alya Al-Sultani, traces Britain’s prosperity back to the machinations of the monarchy and the slave trade. To do this, Cauleen Smith uses a collage of publicly accessible historical documents, illustrations and photographs that depict a...

The discovery of a diary brings the tragic history of a witch hunt in the remote villages of Assam right into the present. Monjula, daughter of one of the women accused of practising witchcraft, documented the events. »I wanted to liberate these women from the burden of telling their...

Juliana Rojas juxtaposes two narratives and gives two movements a structuring role: the journey from the country to the city, and the journey back. The film uses settings to expose the effects of neo-colonial mechanisms, playing with established genre conventions to comment on them. The film title is split...

The fabric shop R&L Textil in Dortmund’s Nordmarkt is a universe all of its own, supplying the transnational community with the finest fabrics: lace, cotton, viscose, nicky, jersey – Rafique Ahmad knows his customers’ tastes. The Transnational Ensemble Labsa also shops here regularly to make costumes with the seamstresses...

Archive footage from the Educational Film Studio in Łódź originally used as a didactic and propaganda tool in communist Poland forms a collage that opens up new creative opportunities for the women involved. The film tells the story of a matriarchal family grappling with the issues of kinship, identity...

»A strange sort of nothing is destroying everything.« Readings from The Neverending Story collide with motherly voice messages and visual moods from the suburbs of L.A. Using humorous artistic strategies, Hey Sweet Pea explores the ageing of parents, one’s own fragility (and that of film material) and locates collective...

Now an adult woman, and just before her parents’ separation, the protagonist looks back on growing up in a difficult home and reflects on the meaning of her name and those of her sisters. She offers the sisters safe spaces in which they can articulate their anger, love and...

Grandmother and housewife Young-E Son morphs into the virtual pop star Big Hand. A life full of domestic duties now lies behind her, while popular culture celebrates youth and self-love. Young-E Son speaks out and shares her day-to-day life as an older Korean woman. Along the way, kimchi, the...

Maurilio and Fidela are a couple who work at a funeral parlour in a small Cuban town. For 17 years they have prepared bodies for burial, and Maurilio has driven them to the cemetery. María Salafranca guides us through their place of work, which the couple recreate with droll...

Precious. Rare. For Sale. takes a broad sweep at the presentation of nature in Vietnamese moving images from the 1990s. From being an abode for majestic and magical beasts, to serving as a backdrop for war heroics and social realist tragedies, representations of nature have been shaped by Vietnam’s...

It has been 50 years since her father left Guadeloupe. Sylvaine Dampierre grew up in France, but returns to Guadeloupe to research the origins of her name, which goes back to the time of enslavement. More than just a journey into the past, however, the film is a powerful...

A cobalt stone brings together a chorus of voices in a transcontinental journey that begins in the Democratic Republic of Congo and culminates in a refrain of collective resistance. Together with Congolese historian Joe-Yves Salankang Sa-Ngol, Ami Louise Wilson and Francois Knoetze follow the metal’s journey en route to...

Three filmmakers are researching a film about the chemical plant in Cologne-Kalk. Sitting at the analogue editing table in the archive, they are confronted with material that sparks questions: site plans, film snippets and photographs of female forced labourers. An archivist comments. Who decides what is preserved? What does...

Yuva means nest or home. Hand-woven Turkish carpets are a profound symbol of home and cultural identity. Inspired by the tactile process of carpet-making and incorporating elements of traditional Turkish dance, Dora Sarikaya delves into associations of »home« and feelings of belonging. The film was shot in the 1974-built...

In the deeply Catholic and patriarchal Philippines, where abortion is illegal and societal expectations for women are unforgiving, Sunshine illuminates the struggle for autonomy and identity with rare candour. Sunshine Francisco, a gifted gymnast aiming for the Olympic national team, faces a devastating reality when an unplanned pregnancy threatens...

CuteFM – Collective for music and visuals

CuteFM༼ つ ◕◡◕ ༽つ presents itself with a playful mix of music and visuals. The team consists of six friends who combine their different artistic interests. With their open approach, they create a hyper-emotional atmosphere that is expressed both on stage and in...

»My intention as a Cameroonian filmmaker is to decolonise myself from what I have seen in films. African cinema is colonised by other forms of cinema. It's important for me to free myself from all that in order to find a form that does justice to the people I'm...

»Exploitation is at the core of our way of life in the privileged societies of the West … Someone has to pay the price for progress. And someone has to get the job done.«
– Sudabeh Mortezai

Underground concrete bunkers, somewhere in Albania. Built during the era of communist dictator Enver...

Farah Kassem has returned to Tripoli. Time passes by in the apartment she shares with her father. They sit close together on heavy, upholstered sofas, yet her father remains absorbed in his own world – a world shaped by pen and paper, a world of words, poetry, passion for...

A conversation with Sophie Haikali, Khadija Zinnenburg Carroll, Yasemin Şamdereli, Helga Binder

How can co-productions between German and African partners be set up in a balanced way? Sophie Haikali, a German producer based in Namibia, hosts an open discussion to explore the practicalities of collaboration. Unequal balances of power are...

Lalo (Lamin Leroy Gibba) and Karla (Melodie Simina) are best friends: they’re Black, queer and live in Hamburg. After the death of his father, Lalo’s life spirals into chaos. Living temporarily with Karla, he’s happy when he manages to secure a spot in a group exhibition. Meanwhile, Karla’s life...

Samia is growing up in a modern Muslim large family in Mogadishu. At home, the atmosphere is warm and humorous, and her father encourages his daughter’s dreams. This is no easy task. In 1991, the year Samia was born, the civil war in Somalia reached a low point when...

“Dedicated to all people who have the courage to be different in order to be themselves”, says the opening credits of De eso no se habla by María Luisa Bemberg. The film tells the story of a woman of short stature whose visible difference is not talked about in...

Screening of Specialised Technique (Onyeka Igwe) and The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman (Rosine Mbakam).

Akosua is a queer, Ghanaian-German, polyamorous woman who wants a child. She divides her time between three cities: Berlin, her main home with partner Nana; Düsseldorf, where she grew up and where her parents live; and Accra, where she hopes to build a future, possibly with her Ghanaian partner,...

The face of an old man. He’s following instructions coming from off camera: »Look at us for a long time without moving.« The man is the director’s father, as we learn from the first test shots, which show him posing shirtless with a look of questioning mischief. When he...

Jury Statement (Conny Beißler, Andaç Karabeyoglu, Adriana Berroterán):

In the summer heat of a small Andalusian village, young Elías explores his sexuality. Drawn to the imagery of Jesus and the martyrs, he aspires to be like them. To feel closer to God, he develops increasingly masochistic tendencies.

Zoe Dumas’ exceptional cinematography...

Germany 1992: Rostock-Lichtenhagen in August, Mölln in November. Solingen and Lübeck follow. A wave of right-wing extremist attacks sweeps across the reunified country. In Mölln, the homes of two Turkish families go up in flames. Three people lose their lives and many others are injured. Thirty years later, in...

Portraying three generations of women in South Korea, the film centres on the figure of the mother, using her story to explore the connections and politics that shape women’s lived realities. While her daughter, Green – a university lecturer and gay rights activist – remains emotionally distant at first,...

»Global history has largely ignored our stories, reducing Afghanistan to a narrative of war, extremism and fundamentalism. Many people believe that Afghan women’s struggles only began in 2001 with international support, but that is far from the truth.«
– Roya Sadat

Kabul, the year 2023. On a billboard, we see a...

It’s spring 1992 in Novi Sad. The phone rings – once, twice, and then over and over again. Each of these calls triggers a different memory. Eleven-year-old Lana relives a series of final moments during her escape from war. It’s as though fragments of the former Yugoslavia constantly resurface...

The Decolonize Dortmund project, comprising Black people and people of colour, is dedicated to addressing Dortmund’s colonial past. The city’s hidden historical connections and colonial continuities are revealed through meticulous research. The project has developed a city tour and an audio walk that is available online in German, English,...

Screening of The Deposition (Claudia Marschal) and THIS IS POOR! Patterns of Poverty (Kerstin Honeit).

Followed by a discussion with Kerstin Honeit in the Superraum (festival centre) at 1:30 pm.

The Long Road to the Director's Chair
The first International Women's Film Festival in Germany took place in 1973. Back then, Helke Sander and Claudia von Alemann succeeded in putting together a four-day film and discussion programme for a women's film movement that was still in the process of being...

This programme of short films complements the screening of The Long Road to the Director’s Chair by Vibeke Løkkeberg and provides an insight into the work of the female directors featured at the First Women’s Film Festival in West Berlin in 1973. The title references the concept of the...

Catalan filmmaker Mar Coll delivers a daring psychological thriller on one of society’s great taboos: the notion that not all women are suited to motherhood. Adapted from Katixa Agirre’s novel Mothers Don’t, the film follows Maria, writer and new mother, as she navigates the duality of creative ambition and...

The people of Stromboli share a deep affection for their IDDU, the volcano in the heart of their island. But they fear its unpredictability, too. This film offers a glimpse into a very unique community: a fisherman, rocks, gnarled trees, cats, lovers, a shared dinner, fish scales and, again...

The short films in this programme share a desire to connect with allies across generations - in the past or even into the future. These »critical fabulations« (Saidiya Hartman) combine archival research and fictional narrative to fill gaps in the historiography.

This film cautiously captures the spirit of Khartoum’s youth as they resist a dictatorial regime, fighting above all for freedom and the right to control their own lives. A chorus of voices emerges: dancing bodies moving through the night to music from portable speakers, rising up in defiance. It...

Until the 1960s, people of colour who wanted to access mainstream cinema could only do so by fitting in with white norms of appearance and behaviour. In the early days of silent film, however, Josephine Baker and comediennes Minnie Devereaux and Bertha Regustus were already making their mark on...

A storm is brewing. Amazon workers have spent countless days and nights camped outside the company’s Staten Island warehouse, rallying support for their newly formed union. Fierce gusts of wind threaten to tear away their tent, while harsh industrial lights cast a cold glare over the scene. Suddenly, the...