The Focus programme 2022 develops last year’s theme further and digs deeper into a topic that concerns us all: our relationship with what we call »nature«. While in 2021 the focus was on the cinematic attitude that allows us to take more-than-human perspectives and to grasp the world, for example, from the point of view of animals, which in turn look at us, the upcoming focus programme will be about healing.

Understanding that we are intimately connected with other beings in many ways points beyond individual self-care strategies. How can films heal the damaged relationships between plants, humans and other animals? There is no master plan – so the cinematic responses are varied: they make people happy, evoke compassion, change perspectives, are funny – and maybe they heal that way.

The programme includes feature-length films by directors Andrea Arnold, Naomi Kawase, Sylviane Dampierre or Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, who focus on hard-working dairy cows, mushroom networks or the element of water. The feature-length film programme is complemented by three short film programmes on the theme.

Our special guest, Zimbabwean writer and director Tsitsi Dangarembga (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade 2021) will join Ines Johnson-Spain (director of our 2020 opening film 2020 Becoming Black) in Cologne to discuss Dangarembga’s film Kare Kare Zvako – Mother’s Day and power relations, motherhood and termites.

A quiet, experimental space is available at the Festival Center under the title »The 12th House«, where you can retreat from the festival hustle and try out tarot as a cinematic practice for three days together with astrologer Monika Heer.

The full programme will be available from 8 March 2022 online right here: Focus.