Programme

International Debut Feature Film Competition

In this section women film-makers compete with their debuts for the prize of Best International Debut Feature Film, which comes endowed with € 10,000.

Through the debut award as conferred in Cologne, Internationales Frauen* Film Fest Dortmund+Köln aims initially to honour the work of upcoming film direction talent. Yet the award is also intended to provide women film-makers already successful in the field of short films and documentaries with the opportunity of pursuing further projects after the completion of their first feature film. In this way, in alternation with the International Feature Film Competition for Women Directors presented in Dortmund, it is hoped to create a continuing framework for festival and promotion activities.

A jury made up of three international film specialists confers the Debut Feature Film Award.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?
2022 sees film nominations from China, Costa Rica, France, Haiti, Romania, Serbia, Spain and the USA.

What are your plans? Where do you want to go? What can you achieve? To what extent does your background, your environment, or world politics influence your development and dreams? These questions are central to the characters and stories in many of the debut films, and they often follow a non-linear understanding of space and time. The cinematic journey around the world takes in everything from improvised film forms and semi-documentary narratives to screen-busting opuses in black and white. Their protagonists have a strength and resilience that thrill and inspire.

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 Nicchiarelli Cosmonauta (IT)
2008: Aurélia Georges L’Homme Qui Marche (FR)
2006: Claudia Llosa Madeinusa (PE)

Jury

Ula Stöckl

The auteur film-maker produced three feminist classics with The Cat Has Nine Lives (1968), Erika’s Passion (1976) and Sleep of Reason (1984, German Film Award). She has made over 20 films, and their visual language has repeatedly defied cinematic conventions. Her film The Old Song (1991) examined East-West realities following German reunification. Since 2002, she has been a professor of film at the University of Central Florida. The section IFFF REVISITED will be showing The Old Song and Don’t Talk About Fate.

www.ula-stoeckl.com

Tsitsi Dangarembga

The film-maker, playwright and author lives and works in Harare, where she set up her own production company Nyerai Films in 1992. She graduated from the German Film and Television Academy Berlin and has been involved in numerous Zimbabwean feature films, including such classics as Neria (1991), which is based on her screenplay, and Everyone’s Child (1996). She campaigns throughout Africa for women’s rights and actively supports women film-makers. In 2021, the PEN Pinter prize-winner received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. She is currently working on several film projects. The festival’s FOCUS section presents her prize-winning musical Kare Kare Zvako – Mother’s Day.

Actual People

Kit Zauhar

US
2021
Feature Film
84’
OmU

This film will also be available online on our VoD platform from March 29 to April 10, 2022. Please note: […]

Bipolar

Queena Li

CN
2021
Feature Film
111’
OmeU

This film will also be available online on our VoD platform from March 29 to April 10, 2022. Please note: […]

Blue Moon

Alina Grigore

RO
2021
Feature Film
85’
OmeU, dt. UT

A small room. A young woman asleep in bed. She’s rudely awoken by her sister, other people enter. There’s no […]

Celts

Milica Tomović

RS
2021
Feature Film
106’
OmeU, dt. UT

This film will also be available online on our VoD platform from March 29 to April 10, 2022. Please note: […]

Clara Sola

Nathalie Álvarez Mesén

SE / CR / BE / DE
2021
Feature Film
106’
OmeU, dt. UT

This film will also be available online on our VoD platform from March 29 to April 10, 2022. Please note: […]

Freda

Gessica Généus

HT / FR / BJ
2021
Feature Film
93’
OmeU

Student Freda lives with her family in a popular but poor neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince. Her mother Jeanette supports herself and […]

Mi iubita, mon amour

Noémie Merlant

FR
2021
Feature Film
95’
OmeU

This film will also be available online on our VoD platform from March 29 to April 10, 2022. Please note: […]

Mighty Flash

Ainhoa Rodríguez

ES
2021
Feature Film
98’
OmeU, dt. UT

In Extremadura, a province in the southwest of Spain, a village awaits a great flash of light. Anything to shake […]