»We ask you to echo the ral­ly­ing cries of Ira­ni­ans for free­dom. Become the voice of those peo­ple who are pay­ing with their lives for free­dom« Iran­ian film­mak­ers recent­ly request­ed in an open let­ter.

The death of Mah­sa Ami­ni while in police cus­tody and the increas­ing repres­sions because of the coun­try­wide protests have shocked us and are a cause of great con­cern to us. As Ger­man film schools we have collectively com­mit­ted our­selves to diver­si­ty and against dis­crim­i­na­tion. We have com­mit­ted our­selves to ques­tion­ing exist­ing struc­tures and stereo­types con­struc­tive­ly and to address the issues of abuse of pow­er and gen­der equal­i­ty. There­fore, we also want to express our sol­i­dar­i­ty with the pro­test­ers with a unit­ed voice:

We are deeply con­cerned about the sit­u­a­tion in Iran and espe­cial­ly at the Iran­ian uni­ver­si­ties. We condemn the vio­lent repres­sion of free­dom of expres­sion and the right to per­son­al devel­op­ment. We see you, your coura­geous resis­tance, and the sac­ri­fices you make. You are not alone.
We stand behind you and your com­mit­ment to “women, life, lib­er­ty”!

We are hap­py to announce three nom­i­na­tions for this year’s FIRST STEPS Awards.

Two DFFB pro­duc­tion stu­dents are nom­i­nat­ed for the NO FEAR Award: Tama­ra Erbe for the film BABY BITCHKA (direc­tor: Anna Maria Roznows­ka, screen­writer: Anna Maria Roznows­ka & Tama­ra Erbe, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Malte Siepen, pro­duc­tion: Tama­ra Erbe) and Sara Fazi­lat for NICO (director/​screenwriter: Eline Gehring, cinematographer/​screenwriter: Fran­cy Fab­ritz, producer/​screenwriter: Sara Fazi­lat).

In addi­tion, Aart Stein­mann is also nom­i­nat­ed for his grad­u­at­ing screen­play NIEMCY– DIE FREMDEN.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to all three stu­dents!

The FIRST STEPS award is the most impor­tant award for grad­u­at­ing films of film schools in Ger­man-speak­ing coun­tries. With a total of €119,000 in prize mon­ey, it is the largest endow­ment of its kind for young film­mak­ers. There are nine prize cat­e­gories and prizes are award­ed annu­al­ly to direc­tors, pro­duc­ers, cin­e­matog­ra­phers, and screen­writ­ers of short, medi­um-length, and fea­ture-length films, doc­u­men­taries, and com­mer­cials, as well as to actors. Each nom­i­nee receives €1000.

We are keep­ing our fin­gers crossed and will be excit­ed­ly watch­ing the award cer­e­mo­ny on June 21, which will be streamed live on the ARD Mediathek from 7 pm.

 

© FIRST STEPS

The grad­u­a­tion film WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY? by direct­ing grad­u­ate Alexan­dre Koberidze cel­e­brates its world pre­miere in com­pe­ti­tion at the 71st Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val.

Observ­ing every­day life in Kutaisi, Geor­gia, with humour and sen­si­tiv­i­ty, the 150-minute film paints a mag­i­cal love sto­ry that seems impos­si­ble, yet ends on a hope­ful note. “I want­ed to make a film about the love of cin­e­ma, in times when oth­ers have long since declared cin­e­ma dead,” says the direc­tor, who was born in Tbil­isi in 1984.

WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY? was fund­ed by Medi­en­board Berlin-Bran­den­burg and Rund­funk Berlin-Bran­den­burg as part of the LEUCHTSTOFF pro­gram. With the young pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny New Mat­ter Films, found­ed by the stu­dents Mari­am Shat­berashvili and Luise Hauschild as well as cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Faraz Fes­hara­ki, the direc­tor has gath­ered an ambi­tious, moti­vat­ed, and high­ly tal­ent­ed team around him, which suc­cess­ful­ly worked togeth­er on the real­iza­tion of this spe­cial grad­u­a­tion film.

We warm­ly con­grat­u­late the entire team for this huge hon­our and are already keep­ing our fin­gers crossed for the Gold­en Bear Awards on March 5!

Alum­na Angela Schan­elec pre­sent­ed her lat­est film I WAS AT HOME, BUT at the New York Film Fes­ti­val. The Lin­coln Cen­ter is also pre­sent­ing a com­plete ret­ro­spec­tive titled “Dreamed Paths: The Films of Angela Schan­elec” of the Berlin filmmaker’s work. You can attend the screen­ings at Film at Lin­coln Cen­ter until Feb­ru­ary 21.

Lis­ten to the con­ver­sa­tion about the film (and Shake­speare, Ozu, and Bres­son) here.

Pho­to­cre­d­it : Film at Lin­coln Cen­ter

This year, the DFFB will once again be present at the 70th Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val (Feb­ru­ary 20–March 1, 2020). The DFFB is con­tribut­ing to an excit­ing fes­ti­val with a doc­u­men­tary and a fea­ture film cre­at­ed by women grad­u­ates in two sec­tions as well as twelve projects fea­tur­ing alum­ni.

 

DFFB Films at the Berli­nale

The DFFB grad­u­a­tion film BLUE EYES AND COLORFUL MY DRESS by Poli­na Gumiela—a doc­u­men­tary fol­low­ing 3‑year-old Zhana on her for­ays through her neigh­bour­hood in Plovdiv/Bulgaria—will cel­e­brate its world pre­miere in the Gen­er­a­tion Kplus sec­tion. A FISH SWIMMING UPSIDE DOWN by Eliza Petkova—a grad­u­a­tion film about an unusu­al love tri­an­gle in which the par­tic­i­pants expect more from each oth­er than they can handle—screens in Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino. These two films will also be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the EFM mar­ket on 26.02. at the DFFB cin­e­ma.

 

Events Dur­ing the Fes­ti­val

The DFFB will also be present dur­ing var­i­ous events through­out the Berli­nale: The Film­net­zw­erk Berlin is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the open­ing con­fer­ence of the Crit­ics‘ Week on 19.02 dur­ing the work­shop “Film gegen Rechts“ (Film against the Right). Ser­i­al Eyes, the post­grad­u­ate pro­gramme for the devel­op­ment of tele­vi­sion series, will be present at the Berli­nale Series Mar­ket in the Zoopalast at “Hot Con­tenders 2020: Dis­cov­er the Next Gen­er­a­tion.”

On 26 Feb­ru­ary, grad­u­ates will present a selec­tion of dar­ing projects, which will then be dis­cussed with top-lev­el indus­try play­ers. That evening, the DFFB invites you to its annu­al recep­tion on the 9th floor of the Filmhaus. NEXT WAVE, the DFFB’s new pro­gramme on the future of Euro­pean film mar­kets, focus­es on the top­ic “Chal­lenges of New Dis­tri­b­u­tion” at EFM Hori­zon, where solu­tions for chal­lenges in the areas of film fes­ti­vals, VOD, and microdis­tri­b­u­tion will be devel­oped.

DFFB stu­dents will also par­take in the fes­ti­val: cur­rent­ly in its 10th edi­tion, “Couch­surf­ing the Berli­nale” has invit­ed 25 film stu­dents from around the world to Berlin, pro­vid­ing them with a sofa to sleep on and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore the fes­ti­val togeth­er with DFFB stu­dents.

Addi­tion­al­ly, four DFFB stu­dents and alum­ni belong to this year’s Col­lec­tive of Berli­nale Tal­ents: cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Con­stanze Schmitt, direc­tor Bor­bála Nagy, direc­tor Lukas Feigelfeld, and pro­duc­er Clemens Köstlin.

 

DFFB Alum­ni

UNDINE by Chris­t­ian Pet­zold (com­pe­ti­tion)

NAKED ANIMALS by Melanie Waelde (Encoun­ters)

ONE OF THESE DAYS by Bas­t­ian Gün­ther (Panora­ma)

DAYS OF CANNIBALISM by Tebo­ho Edkins (Panora­ma)

WAGENKNECHT by San­dra Kaudel­ka, shot by Michael Kotschi (Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino)

VEINS OF THE WORLD copro­duced by Eva Kemme (Gen­er­a­tion)

KIDS RUN copro­duced by Mar­tin Heisler (Gen­er­a­tion)

WALCHENSEE FOREVER copro­duced by Mar­tin Heisler (Gen­er­a­tion)

SOMETHING SELFE EXPLANATORY (15x) by Harun Faroc­ki and Hart­mut Bit­o­m­sky (Forum anniver­sary pro­gramm)

THE WOMEN´S FILM by Helke Sander (Forum anniver­sary pro­gramm)

DUNKELSTADT shot by Emre Erk­men (Berli­nale Series Mar­ket)

 

Down­load images and press kits of the DFFB films, screen­ing dates of all films, and the DFFB logo here.

Pho­to: DAYS OF CANNIBALISM by Tebo­ho Edkins