Programme

International Debut Feature Film Competition

Don’t be afraid of grumpy women*

»LET’S DO SOMETHING THAT WE’RE SCARED OF, THAT’S DISTURBING, SOMETHING WE’VE NEVER DONE BEFORE. LET’S TAKE RISKS.« SHANNON MURPHY

Mariam advises her husband to turn around and disappear again – she’s better off without him, she says. Milla, 15 and a cancer patient, wants to enjoy life to the full until she draws her dying breath, with no regard to the shocked people around her. Ying-juan puts up her entire body weight to resist the glorious promises of the neoliberal body normativity. Elpida uses the hormones unleashed by menopause to find a way out of her narrow-gauge life. Katja throws people that annoy her on the mat or out of the window. The protagonists of our competition selection this year are hungry for knowledge, ambitious, witty, grumpy, sensual, unhappy, stubborn, angry, fat, strong and loud. Are they also nice? Not so much.

Around 130 international productions made it onto the competition’s longlist. Regardless of the films’ origins, many of the rising stars who directed them (and that is not to say they are all young, with some having produced their directorial debuts way over the age of 30) have chosen to focus on toxic masculinity. Even more of them have spotlighted protagonists who have to travel a rocky road before they can understand who they are, what they want and how to live free. Their endeavours are certainly not always crowned with success, but the Geena Davis adage »If she can see it, she can be it« is true for so much more than just one’s choice of profession. The variety of decisions, lifestyles, looks, physiques and characters in these films is great fun and opens up a generous space to breathe and think.
Stefanie Görtz

Curators:

Awardees
2022: Gessica Généus Freda (HT / FR / BJ)
2020: Maya Da-Rin A Febre (BR/DE/FR)
2018: Carla Simón Estiu (ES)
2016: Ana Cristina Barragán Alba (EC)
2014: Neus Ballús La Plaga (ES)
2012: Belma Baş Zefir (TR)
2010: Susanna Nichhiarelli Cosmonauta (IT)
2008: Aurélia Georges L’Homme Qui Marche (FR)
2006: Claudia Llosa Madeinusa (PE)

Jury

Claudia Steffen

After leaving school, Claudia Steffen went straight from her native Rostock to Berlin, joined Gemini Films in Cologne in 1994 and then specialised in international coproduction management. In 1998 she moved to Cologne production firm Pandora Film, became partner in 2005 and took over as managing director in 2012. Steffen produces feature films in cooperation with directors from all over the world. On her list of achievements spanning over 40 works are Gundermann (director: Andreas Dresen), High Life (director: Claire Denis), Layla Fourie (director: Pia Marais), and In My Room (director: Ulrich Köhler). Steffen considers herself, in film terms, an »enabler«. She regularly teaches seminars on film (co)production and is a member of ACE (Ateliers du Cinéma Européen) and the German Film Academy.

Luise Wolfram

A native of Jena, Germany, Luise Wolfram first appeared on screen aged 7 in Helke Misselwitz’s film Engelchen. She trained at the University of Performing Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin and was an ensemble member of Berlin’s Schaubühne theatre until 2015. Wolfram has worked with several directors including Michael Thalheimer, Jossi Weiler, and Katie Mitchell, in whose internationally successful production of Miss Julie she played the leading role and was rewarded in Moscow with the Golden Mask theatre award. Among her recent cinema and TV appearances are Matilda as the last Russian Empress, Schubert in Love, Aenne Burda –Die Wirtschaftswunderfrau, Charité and Devotion. In 2020, Wolfram will reappear as forensics expert Linda Selb in the Bremen edition of German crime series Tatort.

María Paula Lorgia

María Paula Lorgia is a researcher and curator of film and media arts and holds a master’s degree in media studies from the New School University in New York City. She currently serves as the head programmer of the Cinematheque of Bogotá, the main public institution for cinema in Colombia. For the past six years she has also been coordinating Ciclo Rosa, the oldest Colombian LGBTIQ film festival.

Adam

Maryam Touzani

MA / FR
2019
Feature Film
98’

»Death does not belong to the women.« – Abla »Very little is really ours.« – Samia Abla, a widow, is […]

Babyteeth

Shannon Murphy

AU
2019
Feature Film
117’

To outsiders, they appear to be a well-off, bourgeois-liberal family. Henry is a psychiatrist, his wife Anna a laid-back creative […]

Cleo

Eva Cools

BE
2019
Feature Film
105’

After 17-year-old Cleo survives the devastating car crash that killed both her parents, she succumbs to post-traumatic stress disorder. She […]

Heavy Craving

Hsieh Pei-Ju

TW
2019
Feature Film
90’

»In cinema, we do not see different types of bodies, especially for women we only see slim, with perfect bodies, […]

Mariam

Sharipa Urazbayeva

KZ
2019
Feature Film
75’

Zhanash, a small village in the Kazakh steppe, 400 km from the capital Almaty and three kilometres from the nearest […]

Naked Animals

Melanie Waelde

DE
2020
Feature Film
83’

A film about a time when conquering the world seems entirely possible. Five adolescents growing up somewhere in provincial Germany, […]

Pause

Tonia Mishiali

CY / GR
2018
Feature Film
96’

»I was inspired by images that were depicted in my mind and events that I experienced growing up in Cyprus […]

The Fever

Maya Da-Rin

BR / FR / DE
2019
Feature Film
98’

The Fever addresses the dramatic changes to the habitat in Brazil’s Amazon basin. 45-year-old Justino (Regis Myrupu), a member of […]