International Feature Film Competition

Home Fest 2023 Programme International Feature Film Competition

The Dortmund Feature Film Competition gives directors a platform who have presented interesting debuts or already have a larger oeuvre. It showcases the latest productions from highly-renowned women directors. Over the years, these included the grande dames of the film industry such as Agnieszka Holland, Andrea Arnold and Sally Potter line up against younger stars such as Maren Ade, Athina Rachel Tsangari and Teona Strugar Mitevska.

Dortmund will host the award for best feature film woman director for the tenth time this year. Eight new international feature films from Brazil, Germany, France, Indonesia, Mexico, Palestine and Spain will compete for the winning prize of €15,000. The prize money is split between the director (€5,000) and the German distributor (€10,000) to promote distribution of the films in Germany.

The prize will be awarded by the international jury at the special award ceremony. This year the jury consists of Sara Fazilat, Maria Furtwängler and Helke Sander.

The films in competition tell stories about the emboldening, transformative possibilities of unexpected friendships; about self-determination and the power of personal freedom, about loss and the wisdom gained from it, about (re)discovering the meaning of life in an environment of solidarity and collective action.

Curators:

Stefanie Görtz

Jennifer Jones

Awardees
2023: Pilar Palomero Motherhood (ES 2022)
2021: Jasmila Žbanić mit Quo Vadis, Aida? (BA/AT/RO/DE/NL/PL/FR/NO 2020)
2019: Teona Strugar Mitevska for God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya (MK/BE/SI/HR/FR 2019)
2017: Delphine and Muriel Coulin for Voir Du Pays (FR 2016)
2015: Naomi Kawase for Still The Water (JP/ES/FR 2014)
2013: Małgorzata Szumowska for In The Name Of… (PL 2012)
2011: Athina Rachel Tsangari for Attenberg (GR 2010)
2009: Maren Ade for Everyone Else (DE 2009)
2007: Andrea Arnold for Red Road (UK 2006)
2005: Keren Yedaya for Or (My Treasure) (IL 2004)

Jury

Sara Fazilat

The actor, producer and screenwriter studied in London, Berlin and New York. Her anti-racism graduation film Nico was her international breakthrough. Fazilat produced the film, played the lead role and helped write the script. She received the Max Ophüls Award and the First Steps No Fear Award, among others. She then appeared in Bully Herbig’s A Thousand Lines and Holy Spider by Ali Abbasi, among others. Fazilat was a member of the board of Pro Quote Film and in 2020 founded the production company Third Culture Kids. She is currently working on scripts for the feature film Arier and the series Underdogs.

Maria Furtwängler

The actor, producer and medical doctor is the co-founder of the MaLisa Foundation, which aims to overcome restrictive role models, among other things. Furtwängler has received numerous awards for her charitable work and acting roles. She has embodied the character of Tatort police detective Charlotte Lindholm since 2002, and played the role of a development aid worker in Isabelle Stever’s feature film The Weather Inside, a rock singer in Nachts Baden by Ariane Zeller and a troubled driving school teacher in the TNT comedy original Ausgebremst, which she developed with her production company Atalante Film.

Helke Sander

The director and writer is one of the key figures in West Germany’s new women’s movement. She was a successful theatre and television director in Finland—and a mother—before studying film at the DFFB in Berlin from 1966. She co-founded the Kinderladen movement, the 1st International Women’s Film Seminar in Berlin and in 1974 she founded the magazine Frauen und Film, which made an important contribution to the debate about feminism and film aesthetics. Her films include The All-Round Reduced Personality, Love Is the Beginning of All Terror, Liberators Take Liberties, and many more. She taught as a professor at HFBK Hamburg, among others, until 2001.