International Debut Feature Film Competition

Home Fest 2022 Programme Internationaler Debüt-Spielfilmwettbewerb

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:

Stefanie Görtz

Jennifer Jones

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.