Stefanie Görtz
Head of programme and curator Feature Film Competition | Public relations
International Feature Film Competition
- International Feature Film Competition
- Specials
- desired! – film lust and queer
- The Film All-Nighter
- ECFA Short Film Award
- Focus: Learning and Unlearning Film – Decolonising Cinema
- IFFF revisited
- Panorama
- Films for Kids and Young Adults
- Audience Award
- Spot on, NRW!
- SHOOT
- Female Gaze – CineOne & sPOTTlight Young Talent Award for Women Directors of Photography in NRW
International Feature Film Competition
Black comedies and sharp satires about families, gentrification and turbo-capitalism. Unexpected takes on unwanted or creativity-stifling motherhood. Strong, complex female characters who challenge conventions and encourage outside-the-box thinking. Journeys into the past that shed light on the present.
The Competition section award, worth €15,000, is open to acclaimed women directors who have made at least two feature films. This year’s selection includes films from India, the Philippines, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, as well as international co-productions set in Afghanistan, Albania and Scotland.
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
Hei-rim Hwang
The curator, producer and co-managing director of Metaplay Inc. has been the programme director of the Seoul International Women’s Film Festival since 2023. She was an editor of Cine21 and, after studying at Birkbeck University of London, a curator of various film festivals and coordinator of conferences for the Busan International Film Festival. She has produced the music documentary Reservoir Dogs and the documentaries Sanda, The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol and Time of Seeds and is involved in the distribution of independent films such as The Running Actress and Cats’ Apartment.
Julie Dash
The US American is an icon of Black and Independent Cinema. She explores issues concerning racial justice, diasporic identities, migration and the lives of Black women in films, videos and installations. In 1991, she became the first African American woman to achieve a nationwide cinema release in the United States with Daughters of the Dust. The rhapsodic family saga, like her short film Illusions, was protected in the National Film Registry as a national treasure. She has taught at various universities and co-hosted the Combahee Experiment at Princeton University with Angela Davis.
Yasemin Şamdereli
The director and screenwriter was born and raised in Dortmund. During her studies at the HFF Munich, she worked as an assistant director on international cinema productions by Jackie Chan, Teddy Chan and Stanley Tong. Her graduation film Kismet received the Short Tiger Award. She has directed the TV films Alles getürkt!, Ich Chef, du nix and co-wrote the series Türkisch für Anfänger. Her celebrated cinema debut Almanya had its world premiere at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival and received two German Film Awards, among others. She recently directed Samia.
Europa
Sudabeh Mortezai
»Exploitation is at the core of our way of life in the privileged societies of the West … Someone has […]
Family Therapy
Sonja Prosenc
A car is ablaze. Standing on the roadside is a family, in a state of shock. A second family drives […]
Faruk
Aslı Özge
The face of an old man. He’s following instructions coming from off camera: »Look at us for a long time […]
Harvest
Athina Rachel Tsangari
Grasses sway in the wind. A hand with black fingernails picks up a snail. The man taking in the trees, […]
Salve Maria
Mar Coll
Catalan filmmaker Mar Coll delivers a daring psychological thriller on one of society’s great taboos: the notion that not all […]
Sima’s Song
Roya Sadat
»Global history has largely ignored our stories, reducing Afghanistan to a narrative of war, extremism and fundamentalism. Many people believe […]
Sunshine
Antoinette Jadaone
In the deeply Catholic and patriarchal Philippines, where abortion is illegal and societal expectations for women are unforgiving, Sunshine illuminates […]
Village Rockstars 2
Rima Das
Set in rural Assam, this intimate sequel to Village Rockstars (2016) revisits Dhunu, now a determined 17-year-old navigating the hardships […]
