Screening Schedule

Ulja Funk is fascinated by astronomy and wants give a lecture on her current findings to the choir congregation of the Lemheim Free Church to which her parents and her grandmother Olga belong. Frustrated by the lack of interest with which she is met, she secretly takes matters into her own hands. She convinces her classmate Henk, who can drive but needs help at school, to drive her to the village in Belarus where a small asteroid is due to hit in just under two days. The journey begins on the wrong foot when they discover her grandmother Olga trapped in the car, and soon the church congregation is on their trail. Mission Ulja Funk is a fast-paced and quirky road movie, one that is hard to fit in a box, about a 12-year-old asteroid researcher who doesn't rock just her Russian-German family's boat.

Digital natives in adolescence: on the one hand, the distant, adored social media star in the USA, on the other, the big fan in Germany - two stories and yet one narrative. A sensitive coming-of-age film that captures the present-day growing up of two girls separated by thousands of kilometers and shares their thoughts and lives

The story of Ludvig Kahlen who pursued his lifelong dream: To make the heath bring him wealth and honor.

Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden beside the camp.

Rebelling against the banality of work, Rodrigo Moreno’s playful and restorative Cannes highlight reinvents the heist film as a free-flowing adventure in which love and epiphanies bloom. A beguiling and defiant quest for personal freedom that dares to embrace the strangeness of life with open arms.

A young teacher hopes to be transferred to Istanbul after four years of mandatory service in a remote village, but is accused of inappropriate contact by two students. After losing hope, a colleague offers him new perspectives on life.

Celebrated filmmaker Ira Sachs (Love is Strange) makes a breathtaking return with Passages, a fresh, honest and brutally funny take on messy, modern relationships, starring Franz Rogowski (Great Freedom), Ben Whishaw (Women Talking) and Adèle Exarchopoulos (Blue Is the Warmest Colour). Set in Paris, this seductive drama tells the story of Tomas (Rogowski) and Martin (Whishaw), a gay couple whose marriage is thrown into crisis when Tomas begins a passionate affair with Agathe (Exarchopoulos), a younger woman he meets after completing his latest film.

Perceptive, intimate and unashamedly sexy, Passages sees Sachs bridge his usually tender style with a uniquely European sensibility, providing an insightful and authentic take on the complexities, contradictions and cruelties of love and desire.

A coming of age story about the power of memories. Emi is your typical 90s pre-teen, a moody music lover who is constantly embarrassed by his family and their variety TV show hijinks. During a trip to their studio, he discovers an analog device with magical powers, but when his grandfather uses it to tape the show, his parents accidentally vanish into thin air. In the midst of grief and the rush of first love, Emi must find a way to change the past through an unusual portal: his family home videos, the only thing he has left.

Survivors from a massive earthquake struggle for a new life in Seoul.

Eric lives a rather normal life working as an animator in the Philippines. One thing glaring about Eric, though, is he does not have a mouth, literally. He has a nice but dirty apartment and a good-paying job, and the guy (Carlo) That he likes seems to like him as well. 

One day, he receives a call from his mother, Rosalinda, asking him for a favor. Eric’s uncle, Rogelio, seems to be missing, and Rosalinda has the last known address. Eric agrees to check up on his uncle, only to find out that his uncle has been dead for days. Later, while still in shock, a familiar Alien arrives, wanting to take Eric away from Earth.

Having escaped from her stressful life in the city, 30-year-old Nat holes up in the small village of La Escapa, in deepest rural Spain. In a rundown country house, with a crochety stray dog, the young girl will try to put her life back on track. Having dealt with her landlord’s hostility and the mistrust of the village locals, Nat finds herself accepting a disturbing sexual proposal made by her neighbour Andreas. This strange and confusing encounter will give rise to an all-consuming and obsessive passion that will completely engulf Nat and make her question the kind of woman she thinks she is.

Penned by Isabel Coixet and Laura Ferrero, the screenplay is an adaptation of the 2020 novel Un amor by Sara Mesa.

Contemplating the failure of his life, Rogério drinks until losing control of his actions and involves himself in a bar brawl. His alcoholic drift takes him to the city port, where he falls asleep while watching passing ships. When a young woman appears in the night, seemingly running from something, Rogério offers to help and enters a nightmare he never imagined could become his.

When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, his mother feels that there is something wrong. Discovering that a teacher is responsible, she storms into the school demanding to know what’s going on. But as the story unfolds through the eyes of mother, teacher and child, the truth gradually emerges.

Irma Countess von Sztáray does not have it easy. Shortly before her application to become lady-in-waiting to Empress Elisabeth of Austria and Queen of Hungary known as "Sisi", Irma gets a bloody nose from her strict mother in all the excitement. Then, at court, she is put on display like a prize cow and interrogated. At Sisi’s summer residence on Corfu, Irma first has to prove her athleticism in sadistic exercises and is then put on a diet of cocaine extracts before she finally meets the moody and erratic empress in person. In between laxative teas and watery soups, hikes and beauty treatments, the two very different women quickly become close – though only as close as Sisi will allow, naturally. But every summer has an end, and when they return to Vienna, the lives of Sisi and Irma change drastically.

In her wild reinterpretation of the oft-told "Sisi" myth, Frauke Finsterwalder unleashes two acting forces of nature – Susanne Wolff and Sandra Hüller – on each other and allows them to upstage each other. With stunning costumes by Tanja Hausner and set to a soundtrack by Nico, Portishead and Le Tigre, the film transports us to a world dominated by women to which, apart from the queer maids, only the gay Archduke Viktor has access.

Shayda, a brave Iranian mother, finds refuge in an Australian women’s shelter with her six-year-old daughter. Over Persian New Year, they take solace in Nowruz rituals and new beginnings, but when her estranged husband re-enters their lives, Shayda’s path to freedom is jeopardized.

Jordan, nowadays. After the sudden death of her husband, Nawal, 30s, has to fight for her part of inheritance in order to save her daughter and home in a society where having a son would be a game changer.

In a desperate attempt to overcome the grief caused by his girlfriend’s passing, Damian sets off on a journey across Mexico. Haunted by memories and regrets, he finds solace through conversations with strangers, witnessing the rituals they participate in to cope with death.

Argentinian cameraman Leandro makes a living from filming, Jewish weddings. At one of his jobs, he falls in love with Paloma, the clarinetist of the Klezmer band. To seduce her, he pretends to be shooting a documentary film about traditional Yiddish folk music. What Leandro does not know is that his “fake” film project will take him on an unscripted journey throughout Eastern Europe in search of the last remaining Klezmer melodies.

In the summer of 2007, an older man approaches Reyhaneh Jabbari and asks the architecture student who has a side job as an interior decorator for her help in the design of offices. During the site inspection, he tries to rape her. Reyhaneh stabs him in self-defence. She is arrested for murder and sentenced to death. Reyhaneh was to spend the next seven years in prison while her family hired lawyers and made the public aware of the case. However, in spite of the efforts of national and international politicians and human rights organisations, the Iranian judiciary continued to cite the "right of blood-revenge". This meant that, as long as Reyhaneh did not withdraw her accusations against the man, his family could demand her death. Reyhaneh stuck to her testimony and was hanged at the age of 26.

In her moving and shockingly topical documentary debut, director Steffi Niederzoll uses among other things original audio and visual material that was smuggled out of Iran. This film, in which "Holy Spider" actor Zar Amir Ebrahimi lends Reyhaneh her voice, makes visible the injustice in Iranian society and portrays an involuntary heroine who gave her life in the fight for women’s rights.

Little One

Directed by Clister Santos (Philippines – 9 mins)

A pregnant mother, unsure of how to raise a child, arranges an interview with her two gay dads but fate intervenes when his dad suffers a heart attack. Memories captured on an old camcorder help her reflect on their family's history.

Cursive

Directed by Isabel SteubleJohnson (UK – 9 mins)

When a woman on the verge of a breakup gets help from a mysterious stranger to improve her handwriting, she finds the inner voice she longed for all along.

Halfway

Directed by Kumar Chheda (India – 14 mins)

A turbulent couple ends up at different entrances of Juhu Beach, forcing them to walk towards each other and meet halfway.

The First Kiss

Directed by Miguel Lafuente (Spain – 9 mins)

Today is a special day for Andi, heading to Madrid to have his first date with a boy he's met online, but things don’t turn out quite as he expected.

Compton's 22

Directed by Drew de Pinto (USA – 18 mins)

Three years prior to Stonewall, transgender sex workers and drag queens revolted against police violence at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Compton’s 22 imagines what happened.

Between light and darkness stands Olfa, a Tunisian woman and the mother of four
daughters. One day, her two older daughters disappear. To fill in their absence, the filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania invites professional actresses and invents a unique cinema experience that will lift the veil on Olfa and her daughters’ life stories. An intimate journey of hope, rebellion, violence, transmission and sisterhood that will question the very foundations of our societies.

Hirayama cleans luxury public toilets in Tokyo. He likes to listen to music on his way to work, loves books and photographs trees in his spare time. Hirayama seems content with his everyday life. A series of chance encounters gradually reveal more about his past. The toilets in the film are part of a project in which Japanese star architects designed 17 public toilets in the Shibuya district of Tokyo.

An elderly Uzbek couple continues their timeless way of life: shearing sheep, milking goats, tending to watermelons, and weaving carpets. The old woman never allows anyone to leave their home without a gift, gently caring for her cantankerous husband. His chronically simmering irritability escalates when their two adult sons – one nearby, the other far away – begin replacing household items with unfamiliar, modern ones they struggle to operate. Their latest plan is to demolish and rebuild the family home, regardless of their parents' objections.

In 1940s Australia, a 9-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun. The New Boy’s presence disturbs the delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.

André and Vera are a young entrepreneurial couple. They get the opportunity to pitch their female health app at a prestigious competition. Before going there, Vera tries hypnotherapy to quit smoking. From this point, her attitude changes and André starts to behave unexpectedly.

She is Austrian, he Swiss; she is a poet, he a playwright; she is a daredevil yet vulnerable, he is adventurous but a little conservative. When Ingeborg Bachmann and Max Frisch meet for the first time in Paris in the summer of 1958, they are already international celebrities of the literary world. In the four years that follow, they dabble in great love and an open relationship between his hometown of Zurich and her adopted Rome. Frisch envies her fame; Bachmann finds his typewriter clatter and his jealousy annoying. She is emancipated, experiments with a liberated existence, is mobile and productive; in Berlin, she writes the famous speech: "The Truth is Bearable for Humankind". She only realises afterwards that she is suffering, and by how much – with Adolf Opel in the desert, and with Hans Werner Henze in Italy. Margarethe von Trotta interweaves the times before and after the catastrophe. Her direction is frank, sober and elegant. Ronald Zehrfeld as the corpulent, pipe-smoking Frisch and Vicky Krieps (in the role of another cult figure after Empress Sisi) are the perfect match. This film is not about Bachmann’s fatal end, but about her hopes for love and respect, in literature, and in life.

Inspired by true stories and myth, Cannes Grand Prix Winner, Matteo Garrone, takes us on a deeply moving odyssey as two boys abandon their families to pursue a dream of a better life.

Set in modern day Helsinki, the film tells the story of Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), two lonely souls whose chance meeting at a local karaoke bar is beset by numerous hurdles. From lost phone numbers to mistaken addresses, alcoholism and a charming stray dog, the pair’s path to happiness is as bittersweet as it is ultimately delightful.

When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her actions threaten to break her.

Southern Thai town. On a once-sandy beach eroded by high tides and now replaced by artificial rock sea walls, two young women meet. Shati is a local Muslim woman from a conservative family. Fon is an activist-turned-visual artist, in town for  her new art exhibition. The deeper they get to know each other, the bigger Shati’s internal conflict with her traditional roots - that forbids same-sex relationship - becomes. Caught between fear and desire, she is reminded of the old cautionary tales from her childhood told by her late and beloved grandmother.

During Shati’s pivotal moment, on Fon’s last night in town, the strange otherworldly occurrences in the tales of Shati’s grandmother gradually start to happen. A storm is brewing. Whether it’s all a dream or not, Shati is making a decision to forge a path for herself, and comes to terms with who she is.

Paula lives with her mother in a form of society whose population is divided into three classes: there are "main characters", "supporting characters" and "outtakes", designations borrowed from the film world. The social order is based on oppression, and the "outtakes" live as the lowest class in state-administered mass housing on the fringes of society. Paula was a supporting character, but has worked her way up with difficulty. Now she is about to take the exam to become a main character, where she has to present an emotional monologue with rousing music. She has a good idea, but the "heart reader" from which her music comes is causing problems. In search of a solution, she goes to the district of the outtakes - and she realises that she has more in common with these people than she could have dreamed.

Screening followed by interaction with the editor of the film, Kai Eiermann.

Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a glamping site near Takumi’s house; offering city residents a comfortable ‘escape’ to nature. When two company representatives from Tokyo arrive in the village to hold a meeting, it becomes clear that the project will have a negative impact on the local water supply, causing unrest. The agency’s mismatched intentions endanger both the ecological balance of the nature plateau and their way of life, with an aftermath that affects Takumi’s life.

Andreas arrives on a remote Greek island to sell a plot of land inherited from his uncle. But first he has to pay off a debt his uncle ran up with Yiannis, a local farmer. Andreas has not enough money. Stuck in the valley, he waits every morning for Yiannis’ granddaughter, Lena, to bring him bread and cheese. He falls in love with her.

At this point he does not sense the danger hanging over the valley and the nearby village. An experience of death and misfortune will soon open his eyes to the fragility of this small world.

Screening followed by interaction with the Director.

Nele is a young call center agent who moonlights as a cloakroom attendant at the State Opera. When she falls in love with the small-time street dancer Kolja, she must confront the demons of her past and descend into the underworld. At the same time, talent scout Höllbach notices Nele's singing talent and offers her a great opportunity for a career as an opera singer. Axel Ranisch's modern adaptation of Orpheus and Eurydice is a cinematic opera pastiche between Puccini, Handel and Christian Steiffen.

Debut writer-director Felipe Gálvez asserts himself as a revelatory new cinematic voice with The Settlers, a searing and indelible take on the Western. Blending historical specificity with vivid visual style, this Cannes Un Certain Regard FIPRESCI Prize winner creates a singular immersive vision, arresting in both content and form.

At the turn of the 20th century, three horsemen embark on an expedition across the Tierra del Fuego archipelago at the behest of a wealthy landowner, tasked with securing his vast state appointed property. Accompanying a reckless British lieutenant and an American mercenary is mestizo marksman Segundo, who comes to realize, amidst rising tensions within the group, their true mission is to murderously “remove” the indigenous population.

Set against stunning mountain landscapes, Chile’s Best International Feature Film entry to the 96th Academy Awards® is a visceral reckoning with national myth and the attendant violence. Painterly yet piercing, this acclaimed frontier epic turns a bold eye to the past, daring to reimagine its depiction in the present and for the future.

Young people in Sri Lanka commit suicide en masse. The government blames this on a supernatural virus that must be fought with an ancient ritual.

Leo (Carlos Manuel Gonzalez) is a blue collar worker with a musical past living in the remote city of Acarigua, nestled in the Venezuelan inland empire. Haunted by financial debt and problems at home, he does anything to stay afloat.

One day, his younger brother Alex (Anyelo Lopez) who has been deaf since birth, offers him a solution: to participate in a musical contest in the capital, Caracas, performing a song that he has written himself because the first prize may solve all his economic problems. Forced by circumstance, Leo must take a leap of faith, unearth his dormant musical talent and do the impossible to change his and his brother's future by joining their voices in an unforgettable journey.

Lubo makes a humble living as a street performer when, in 1939, he is called to join the Swiss army to defend the border from a potential German invasion. Forced to abandon his family, he soon discovers that his wife tragically died while trying to stop the authorities from taking their three young children away.

Targeted because they are Jenisch, a minority nomadic community, Lubo’s family falls victim to a national campaign for the ‘re-education’ of street children. But Lubo knows he will not find peace until he reunites with his children and gets justice for himself and his people - for which he is ready to go to extraordinary lengths. So begins a decades long journey for love and self-determination, an incredible adventure and an epic quest for freedom.

When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley at a party, the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a vulnerable best friend.

Through Priscilla’s eyes, Sofia Coppola tells the unseen side of a great American myth in Elvis and Priscilla’s long courtship and turbulent marriage, from a German army base to his dream-world estate at Graceland, in this deeply felt and ravishingly detailed portrait of love, fantasy, and fame.

The Peasants tells the story of Jagna, a young woman determined to forge her own path within the confines of a late 19th century Polish village – a hotbed of gossip and on-going feuds, held together, rich and poor, by pride in their land, adherence to colourful traditions and deep-rooted patriarchy. When Jagna finds herself caught between the conflicting desires of the village’s richest farmer, his eldest son, and other leading men of the community, her resistance puts her on a tragic collision course with the community around her.

The story of the film is based on the Nobel Prize-winning novel of the same title by Władysław Stanisław Reymont, showing life in the countryside at the turn of the 19th and 20th century.

A teacher manipulates her students into joining her cult of extreme nutrition and ultimately withdrawing completely from the influence of their parents.

Zsófi, the defiant teenager, gives up her newborn daughter through open adoption, but doubts begin to arise within her body and soul. According to Hungarian law, she has six weeks to change her mind.

After 5 years learning the profession of midwife, “the most beautiful job in the world”, Louise and Sofia are finally entering working life and taking on huge responsibilities in a world where, at a frenetic pace, they handle with birth, motherhood and sometimes death. Will their vocation resist such a storm?

The future of Marguerite, a brilliant student in Mathematics at the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure, seems all planned out. Only woman from her promo, she is finishing a thesis she has to expose to an audience of researchers. On the D-day, a mistake shakes all her certainties and all her foundations collapse.

Marguerite decides to quit everything to start all over again.

In the countryside of Galicia, a woman on the run reinvents herself and grapples with questions of motherhood and identity, in Jaione Camborda’s inquisitive and rewarding sophomore effort.

Every Tuesday, Claudine goes to a mountain hotel to meet men passing through. When one of them decides to extend his stay for her, Claudine’s daily life is disrupted and she finds herself dreaming of another life.

Dancer Elena and sign language interpreter Dovydas meet and form a beautiful bond. As they dive into a new relationship, they must navigate how to build their own kind of intimacy.