07/06/2022 - The German-focused film gathering in the Spanish capital boasts a brand-new name and continues its mission to bring a select batch of the country’s recent audiovisual productions to Madrid

This year, the Madrid German Film Festival turns 24, but starting from this edition, which is all set to begin on 8 June (and which will continue unspooling until the 12^th), it will change its name to German Film Fest Madrid. This new wording will allow it to persevere with its well-established philosophy and truly keep it alive and kicking: said philosophy is none other than to premiere a carefully curated programme of movies produced in Germany, in the Palacio de la Prensa cinemas in the central Plaza de Callao.

Kicking off this Madrilenian extravaganza of German audiovisual works will be Florian Hoffmann and his most recent opus, Whispers of War [+see also:
film review
interview: Florian Hoffmann
film profile], a drama teetering halfway between fiction and documentary, which tackles the conflict sparked by media wars during the present century. It tells the story of a Berlin-based primary school teacher who refuses to accept that his sister has perished at the hands of the Turkish Army, taking refuge in the idea that she has merely disappeared and hoping to finally find her alive.

The programme of the German Film Fest Madrid is rounded off by titles such as Toubab [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the feature debut by Florian Dietrich, which uses a pinch of humour and a good dose of bleakness to depict how two petty criminals – one white, the other black, but both heterosexual – decide to get married to avoid the former being deported.

No One’s with the Calves [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sabrina Sarabi
film profile], by another first-time director, Sabrina Sarabi, unfolds one summer in a location in the middle of nowhere, where a beautiful young woman called Christin lives with her boyfriend Jan and his family; however, she feels hemmed in, sad and empty, bored to death in this rural, male-dominated world, yearning for a different kind of life.

With Life on Tape (Bilder (m)einer Mutter), Melanie Lischker has crafted, on one hand, a document on the recent history of Germany – specifically, the last 50 years – and on the other, a look at the life of a family, as told through countless home recordings ranging from the 1980s to the present day. In this way, found footage and voice-overs portray an absent parent.

Everything Will Change [+see also:
film review
interview: Marten Persiel
film profile], the feature debut by Marten Persiel, is a documentary in the guise of a science-fiction fable, constructed as a warning message sent from the future to awaken our environmental awareness before it’s too late. And in Martin Hawie’s prison thriller Future Is a Lonely Place, the main character is a man willing to do whatever it takes to exact revenge.

At this edition, together with the features and the shorts on offer in Next Generation Short Tiger, the event is offering a double bill with two titles each lasting 29 minutes: Rondo by Katharina Rivilis and Sobrevivir, directed by duo Lara Milena Brose and Kilian Armando Friedric.

In addition, the programme of the 24^th German Film Fest Madrid will be topped off by a cycle curated by the Goethe-Institut Madrid, dubbed “Historia e historias” (lit. “History and stories”), hinging on the personality of award-winning filmmaker Christian Schwochow. Three of his most highly acclaimed works will get an airing: the 2019 drama The German Lesson [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the TV comedy Bornholmer Straße (2014) and the political flick Je Suis Karl [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christian Schwochow
film profile] (2021).

The festival is a German Films initiative, which runs in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Madrid and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Madrid.

In collaboration with

(Translated from Spanish)