The Arse­nal Filmin­sti­tut e.V., the Deutsche Kine­math­ek – Muse­um für Film und Fernse­hen and the Deutsche Film- und Fernse­hakademie Berlin (DFFB) are fur­ther expand­ing their col­lab­o­ra­tion. In the future premis­es of the DFFB, the lead­er­ship of the three insti­tu­tions signed an agree­ment that builds on their suc­cess­ful coop­er­a­tion at the for­mer Filmhaus at Pots­damer Platz.

The aim is to sus­tain­ably rein­force Berlin’s film cul­ture, fos­ter exchange between film­mak­ers, audi­ences and insti­tu­tions, and enhance the vis­i­bil­i­ty of audio­vi­su­al her­itage. Despite oper­at­ing from sep­a­rate loca­tions in the future—Arsenal at silent green, the Deutsche Kine­math­ek at E‑Werk, and the DFFB from August at the Berlin Decks campus—the part­ners will con­tin­ue and expand their close coop­er­a­tion.

Planned ini­tia­tives include joint projects and events, sup­port for emerg­ing tal­ent, and clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion in teach­ing, research and archival work. With this agree­ment, the three insti­tu­tions reaf­firm their com­mit­ment to a vibrant, diverse and for­ward-look­ing film cul­ture in Berlin.

Sev­er­al stu­dent films are fea­tured at this year’s achtung berlin film­fes­ti­val (15–22 April 2026). Every year, the fes­ti­val show­cas­es the lat­est film pro­duc­tions from Berlin and Bran­den­burg – high­light­ing the diver­si­ty and artis­tic strength of region­al film­mak­ing.

The fes­ti­val kicks off with the DFFB grad­u­a­tion film MAMBO MATERNICA by Bor­bála Nagy (DoP: Moritz Friese, E: Lás­zló Dunai, P: Mar­gari­ta Amine­va-Jester, Daria Wich­mann): it cel­e­brates its Ger­man pre­miere on 15 April at the Colos­se­um cin­e­ma – there­by offi­cial­ly open­ing the fes­ti­val. In the fea­ture film com­pe­ti­tion, the film tells the sto­ry of three women in Europe who are at turn­ing points in their lives and are seek­ing their own path to self-deter­mi­na­tion amidst the desire to have chil­dren, preg­nan­cy and soci­etal expec­ta­tions.

The DFFB is also strong­ly rep­re­sent­ed in the doc­u­men­tary film sec­tion: A JEWISH PROBLEM von Ron Roth­schild (DoP: Ron Roth­schild, Julien May­er, Fion Mutert, Masha Biller, Sina Aghaz­adeh, E: Astrid Hohle Hansen, P: Yusuf Celik) explores the ques­tion of Jew­ish iden­ti­ty in the present day and exam­ines both per­son­al and soci­etal per­spec­tives. Klara Hard­en takes an inti­mate approach to the theme of moth­er­hood in WOMAN/​MOTHER which brings to light indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences caught between con­flict­ing social expec­ta­tions.

Four fur­ther works are com­pet­ing in the short film com­pe­ti­tion – and demon­strate the breadth of cin­e­mat­ic approach­es: EVERYTHING WE WANT TO KNOW (D/​S: Julia Ketel­hut, DoP: Julien May­er, P: Julia Ketel­hut, Julien May­er) explores ques­tions of knowl­edge, per­cep­tion and per­son­al ori­en­ta­tion in every­day life. In THE BRACELET (D/​S: Ari­na Cher­no­va, Jer­ri Baza­ta, DoP: Masha Biller, P: Jer­ri Baza­ta, Ari­na Cher­no­va, E: Robert Franz, Ari­na Cher­no­va), a seem­ing­ly small object becomes the start­ing point for a sto­ry about mem­o­ry, rela­tion­ships and hid­den mean­ings. And PROTAGONIST (D/​S: Nathalie Sei­dl, DoP: Ari Salazar, P: Tanya Tsygano­va, E: Celine Jünger) explores iden­ti­ty as a play between per­for­mance and real­i­ty. AN ARM IS AN ARM IS AN ARM (D/​S/​M/​P: Bas­t­ian Gascho, DoP: Sel­ma von Pol­heim Gravesen) links a con­ver­sa­tion between two friends about bod­i­ly per­cep­tion and loss to a qui­et image of tran­sience.

Posi­tioned between these for­mats, THE PLANT FROM THE CANARIES (D: Ruan Lan-Xi, DoP: Jonathan Steil) fea­tures in the com­pe­ti­tion for medi­um-length films. Through poet­ic imagery, the film explores migra­tion, belong­ing and the search for iden­ti­ty.

Grad­u­ate pro­duc­tions in the fes­ti­val pro­gramme

Not only cur­rent stu­dents but also DFFB grad­u­ates are shap­ing this year’s pro­gramme: In the fea­ture film com­pe­ti­tion, SOLO SHOW (S: Julia Rose Gostyn­s­ki) is screen­ing, a film about frag­ile self-images and their grad­ual shat­ter­ing. In the medi­um-length for­mat, DIE UNVERZICHTBAREN (D/​S: Flo­ri­an Hoff­mann) turns its gaze towards those whose often invis­i­ble work under­pins the fab­ric of soci­ety. And in the short film DADDY, KOMPLEX (D/​S: Mireya Hei­der de Jahnsen), the focus is on fam­i­ly influ­ences, author­i­ty and emo­tion­al depen­den­cies. The Berlin Spot­lights sec­tion also fea­tures BALANCE (S/​P: Ina-Lene Dinse), which tells the sto­ry of a father-daugh­ter encounter in which close­ness, dis­tance and unspo­ken con­flicts col­lide.

This cre­ates a mul­ti­fac­eted pic­ture of the Academy’s work: doc­u­men­tary and fic­tion­al, focused and exper­i­men­tal – and close­ly linked to the Berlin film scene, which it sig­nif­i­cant­ly shapes.

The DFFB con­grat­u­lates all the film­mak­ers involved on their invi­ta­tion and wish­es the films every suc­cess at the fes­ti­val!

Great recog­ni­tion for film­mak­ers asso­ci­at­ed with the DFFB: the stort­film DOG by Marieke de Zwaan and sev­er­al DFFB alum­ni have been nom­i­nat­ed for the 2025 Ger­man Film Crit­ics’ Award.

In DOG, a taxi dri­ver checks in on his dog through a pet cam­era installed at home. When his wife appears on screen, he uses the dog as an excuse to engage with her. A qui­et, sub­tly sex­u­al­ly charged atmos­phere of dis­tance and close­ness unfolds.

Alum­nus Chris­t­ian Pet­zold’s film has received mul­ti­ple nom­i­na­tions for MIROIRS NO. 3 – in the cat­e­gories of Best Cin­e­matog­ra­phy, Best Actor and Best Pro­duc­tion Design. Julian Radl­maier has also been nom­i­nat­ed in sev­er­al cat­e­gories for his lat­est film PHANTOMS OF JULY: Best Fea­ture Film, Best Screen­play and Best Edit­ing. Fur­ther nom­i­na­tions go to Eliza Petko­va for her doc­u­men­tary SILENT OBSERVERS and to the direct­ing duo Anna Koch and Julia Lemke for Best Chil­dren’s Film with CIRCUSBOY.

The Ger­man Film Crit­ics’ Award, pre­sent­ed annu­al­ly by the Asso­ci­a­tion of Ger­man Film Crit­ics, is one of the most impor­tant inde­pen­dent awards for out­stand­ing artis­tic film­mak­ing in Ger­many. The nom­i­na­tions recog­nise excep­tion­al cin­e­mat­ic styles and social­ly rel­e­vant per­spec­tives.

The 2026 Ger­man Film Crit­ics’ Award cer­e­mo­ny will take place on Sun­day, 15 Feb­ru­ary at the Acad­e­my of Arts.

We con­grat­u­late all the nom­i­nees and wish them every suc­cess at the awards cer­e­mo­ny.

A fan­tas­tic night for the DFFB: At this year’s Ger­man Short Film Awards, two of our pro­duc­tions received a Gold­en Lola. GARNELIUS by Julia Ketel­hut won in the Medi­um-Length Film cat­e­go­ry, while MOTHER IS A NATURAL SINNER by Hoda Taheri and Boris Hadži­ja was award­ed Best Short Film up to 15 min­utes.

The jury praised GARNELIUS as a “dis­turbing­ly beau­ti­ful work” marked by emo­tion­al pre­ci­sion and calm inten­si­ty. MOTHER IS A NATURAL SINNER impressed with its ana­lyt­i­cal clar­i­ty, poet­ic inti­ma­cy, and strik­ing cin­e­matog­ra­phy.

ICEBERGS by Car­los Pereira was also nom­i­nat­ed – a recog­ni­tion that is already con­sid­ered a major achieve­ment and comes with a €15,000 nom­i­na­tion prize.

We warm­ly con­grat­u­late all film­mak­ers involved!

All nom­i­nat­ed and win­ning films will be screened across Ger­many next year as part of the KURZ.FILM.TOUR in munic­i­pal cin­e­mas — don’t miss out!

In a state­ment issued fol­low­ing a con­fer­ence under the title “The Arts and Migration(s): Reflec­tions and Respon­si­bil­i­ties”, which was held in Valletta/​Malta upon invi­ta­tion of the Arts Coun­cil Mal­ta from 27 to 29 Octo­ber 2025, the Euro­pean Alliance of Acad­e­mies express­es its deep con­cern about the increas­ing trans­for­ma­tion of Europe into a fortress where migrants in their strug­gle for a safer life risk rejec­tion, hos­til­i­ty, and death.

The Euro­pean Alliance of Acad­e­mies, which was found­ed five years ago to pro­mote and defend artis­tic free­dom and free­dom of speech, urges the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to recog­nise the rights of peo­ple leav­ing their coun­tries, and to con­sid­er migra­tion essen­tial to our com­mon his­to­ry, vital to the sto­ry of humankind.

Mil­lions of peo­ple are forced to leave their coun­tries because of eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty, war, per­se­cu­tion, flood and drought. There is no migra­tion cri­sis as we hear too often, but there is a polit­i­cal cri­sis where more and more coun­tries blame migra­tion for the prob­lems they face. There is a cli­mate cri­sis and there is a moral cri­sis as we are liv­ing in a world in which wel­come and hos­pi­tal­i­ty must be re-intro­duced: We have to re-find our civil­i­ty.

Art and cul­ture rely upon the free cir­cu­la­tion of peo­ple and ideas – restric­tion to nation­al bound­aries makes us nar­row-mind­ed and one-sided. Instead of clos­ing our eyes to increas­ing prej­u­dice and mis­in­for­ma­tion we must open our win­dows and doors. Indeed, we must recog­nise migrants for all they bring to our soci­eties – their life sto­ries, knowl­edge and cul­ture.

Euro­pean Alliance of Acad­e­mies
Mal­ta State­ment
Pho­to Cred­it: Dar­ren Agius