We are delight­ed that I PLANT MY HAND IN THE GARDEN (direction/​screenplay: Hoda Taheri & Boris Hadži­ja, pro­duc­tion: Max­i­m­il­ian Feld­kamp) will have its world pre­miere at the 83rd Venice Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val (La Bien­nale di Venezia). Boris Hadži­ja’s DFFB grad­u­a­tion film has been invit­ed to the main com­pe­ti­tion of Gior­nate degli Autori (Venice Days), one of the fes­ti­val’s most pres­ti­gious sec­tions.

The film tells the sto­ry of Hoda, an Iran­ian refugee liv­ing in Berlin, and Boris, a queer man from Ser­bia. Togeth­er they decide to mar­ry and raise a child. As fam­i­ly expec­ta­tions, bureau­crat­ic hur­dles and per­son­al expe­ri­ences increas­ing­ly shape their plans for the future, they begin to ques­tion what fam­i­ly actu­al­ly means and whether new ways of liv­ing togeth­er beyond soci­etal norms are pos­si­ble.

Hoda Taheri and Boris Hadži­ja met at the DFFB. Dur­ing their stud­ies, they made a num­ber of short films togeth­er, which screened at the Locarno Film Fes­ti­val and the Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val Rot­ter­dam, among oth­ers. I PLANT MY HAND IN THE GARDEN is their fea­ture debut.

Draw­ing on auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal expe­ri­ences, I PLANT MY HAND IN THE GARDEN moves along the bor­der between fic­tion and real­i­ty. The film explores ques­tions of belong­ing, fam­i­ly and iden­ti­ty, and turns its atten­tion to peo­ple who have to rede­fine their place with­in exist­ing soci­etal struc­tures.

We warm­ly con­grat­u­late the entire team on this extra­or­di­nary invi­ta­tion and wish the film a suc­cess­ful world pre­miere in Venice.

It is with great sad­ness that we must say farewell to Hart­mut Bit­o­m­sky. He was a stu­dent of the very first cohort of the DFFB, at first com­pelled to leave after one year, grad­u­at­ing in 1970 and ulti­mate­ly return­ing as direc­tor of the DFFB from 2006 to 2009. A doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er („Der VW Kom­plex“, „Reich­sauto­bahn“, „High­way 40 West“, „Das Kino und der Tod“ or „Staub“, to name a few), film the­o­rist and author (“Die Röte des Rots von Tech­ni­col­or”), and an excep­tion­al­ly keen observ­er of the world.

The DFFB owes Hart­mut Bit­o­m­sky an immense debt of grat­i­tude. Over the years, he shaped and inspired count­less stu­dents and film­mak­ers, always approach­ing their work with open­ness and curios­i­ty.

Hart­mut Bit­o­m­sky has passed away at the age of 83. Our heart­felt con­do­lences go to his fam­i­ly and all those who shared his jour­ney.

Great news: Four DFFB grad­u­a­tion films have been nom­i­nat­ed this year for one of the pres­ti­gious FIRST STEPS Awards — in the cat­e­gories Fea­ture Length Film, Doc­u­men­tary Film, Screen­play, the Michael Ball­haus Award, and the Götz George New­com­er Award.

The fol­low­ing films are nom­i­nat­ed:

The fea­ture film THE GOOD SISTER by Sarah Miro Fis­ch­er has received nom­i­na­tions in three cat­e­gories: Fea­ture Length Film, Screen­play (Agnes Petersen), and the Michael Ball­haus Award for Best Cin­e­matog­ra­phy (Sel­ma von Pol­heim Gravesen). The film tells the sto­ry of the intense bond between Rose and her old­er broth­er Sam. When Sam is accused of rape and Rose is called to tes­ti­fy as a wit­ness, their sib­ling rela­tion­ship is put to a severe test — as is Rose’s moral com­pass.

THE GOOD SISTER cel­e­brat­ed its world pre­miere in the Panora­ma sec­tion of this year’s Berli­nale and is cur­rent­ly tour­ing suc­cess­ful­ly at inter­na­tion­al fes­ti­vals, includ­ing San Sebastián.

UNGEDULD DES HERZENS by Lau­ro Cress has been nom­i­nat­ed in the cat­e­gories Fea­ture Length Film and the Götz George New­com­er Award (Lad­i­na von Frisching). At its cen­ter is a young Bun­deswehr sol­dier who, out of shame, pity, and a deep need for recog­ni­tion, feigns roman­tic feel­ings for a par­a­lyzed woman — even giv­ing her hope of recov­ery. But as her grow­ing mis­trust clash­es with his increas­ing obses­sion to “save” her, they are drawn into a dan­ger­ous spi­ral that near­ly ends in tragedy.

The film, like THE GOOD SISTER, was pro­duced as part of the Leucht­stoff ini­tia­tive by rbb and Medi­en­board Berlin-Bran­den­burg. Already at the Max Ophüls Preis Film Fes­ti­val in Saar­brück­en, UNGEDULD DES HERZENS won the main award as well as both act­ing prizes.

The mul­ti-award-win­ning film ABODE OF DAWN by Kristi­na Shtu­bert, also a Leucht­stoff project, is nom­i­nat­ed in the Doc­u­men­tary Film cat­e­go­ry. The film fol­lows the dream of a new soci­ety deep in the Siber­ian taiga. It pre­miered at DOK Leipzig 2024 and went on to win the Next:Wave Award at CPH:DOX as well as the Ursu­la Bick­le Foun­da­tion Award at dokka:12 in Karl­sruhe.

Last but not least, MY BOYFRIEND EL FASCISTA by Matthias Lint­ner is also nom­i­nat­ed in the Doc­u­men­tary Film cat­e­go­ry. The film sheds light on how per­son­al rela­tion­ships can suf­fer under polit­i­cal ten­sions: when the direc­tor and his part­ner col­lide over their oppos­ing polit­i­cal views, their love is put to the ulti­mate test. This co-pro­duc­tion with Helios Sus­tain­able Films and Mariq­ui­tas Film has already screened at inter­na­tion­al fes­ti­vals such as Bolzano and Hot Docs Toron­to.

Ange­li­ka Levi will take over the cre­ative lead­er­ship of the Acad­e­my start­ing in Octo­ber 2025. The Board of Trustees con­firmed her appoint­ment dur­ing its meet­ing on June 25, 2025 – fol­low­ing the rec­om­men­da­tion of the selec­tion com­mit­tee.

For Levi, it is a return to her old place of work: she her­self stud­ied at the DFFB from 1985 to 1991. Since then, she has been active as a film­mak­er, her works have screened at inter­na­tion­al fes­ti­vals, in exhi­bi­tions and in cin­e­mas — and have received numer­ous awards. Levi works across gen­res, with a strong focus on socio-polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal themes. Her sig­na­ture style is unmis­tak­able: com­plex mon­tages of dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives and mate­ri­als — includ­ing film, video, audio, pho­tog­ra­phy and texts, often from archives of var­i­ous ori­gins.

Ange­li­ka Levi has been a pro­fes­sor of film at the Hochschule für Gestal­tung in Offen­bach am Main since 2022.

The deci­sion to estab­lish an Artis­tic Direc­tor­ship at the DFFB with­out exec­u­tive man­age­ment respon­si­bil­i­ties was made by the Board of Trustees in Decem­ber 2024. The posi­tion was pub­licly adver­tised in Feb­ru­ary 2025, and the appli­ca­tion process ran until mid-March. A sev­en-mem­ber selec­tion com­mit­tee – con­sist­ing of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Board of Trustees, lec­tur­ers, stu­dents, staff, and the man­ag­ing direc­tor – reviewed a wide range of high­ly qual­i­fied appli­ca­tions. Through a mul­ti-stage process involv­ing pre­sen­ta­tions and inter­views, Ange­li­ka Levi ulti­mate­ly impressed the com­mit­tee.

We warm­ly wel­come her and are very much look­ing for­ward to work­ing togeth­er!

On 15 May 2025, the twelve par­tic­i­pants of Ser­i­al Eyes #12 pre­sent­ed their orig­i­nal series con­cepts at the pro­gram­me’s Final Pitch at SoHo House in Berlin. This closed indus­try event marks the cul­mi­na­tion of Europe’s lead­ing post­grad­u­ate train­ing pro­gramme for tele­vi­sion writ­ers and showrun­ners.

Over the course of eight inten­sive months, these twelve aspir­ing writ­ers from around the world have devel­oped bold, orig­i­nal series, hon­ing their col­lab­o­ra­tive and cre­ative skills in a writ­ers’ work­shop. Under the guid­ance of inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised showrun­ners, pro­duc­ers and writ­ers, the par­tic­i­pants have explored the entire devel­op­ment cycle of a series — from con­cept cre­ation to pitch­ing and beyond.

The par­tic­i­pants of the Ser­i­al Eyes cohort of 2025:

Anni­ka Cizek, Ger­many

Kri­ti Kapoor, India

Adrien Mabile, France

Lud­mi­la Naves, Brazil

Thùy Trang Nguyễn, Ger­many

Lara Panah-Iza­di, France /​ USA

Kate­ri­na Papanas­tasatou, Greece

Nuno Sol­er, Por­tu­gal

Lara Sper­ber, Ger­many

Pan­ni Szur­di, Hun­gary

Alex Tibu, Roma­nia

Juliana Yling Tu, Por­tu­gal /​ Brasil

We look for­ward to shar­ing their future suc­cess­es with you. If you’d like more impres­sions of this year’s final pitch, fol­low us on social media or con­tact us for the pitch book­let: info@​serial-​eyes.​de

This year’s pitch­ing event DFFB Con­nect took place on 8 April 2025 in the Säälchen am Holz­markt. Stu­dents pitched their (grad­u­a­tion) projects, a doc­u­men­tary film and a series.

After­wards, there were quick, sev­en-minute round table dis­cus­sions with the pro­duc­ers, edi­tors and agents present, who got to know all the stu­dents and their projects even bet­ter.

Any­one inter­est­ed in the projects pre­sent­ed is wel­come to get in touch at presse@​dffb.​de.

Our post­grad­u­ate train­ing pro­gramme Ser­i­al Eyes, as part of the STREAM net­work, has demon­strat­ed fur­ther com­mit­ment to improv­ing and expand­ing the Euro­pean series land­scape.

STREAM (Series Train­ing Resources, Engage­ment and Media) con­sists of 10 of Europe’s lead­ing insti­tu­tions for fur­ther edu­ca­tion in the series indus­try. Through shared val­ues and goals, the ini­tia­tive pro­motes col­lab­o­ra­tion, knowl­edge shar­ing and inno­va­tion in the Euro­pean series land­scape to fos­ter the next gen­er­a­tion of the indus­try.

Dur­ing this year’s Series Mania Fes­ti­val in Lille, the insti­tu­tions (Series Mania Insti­tute, Den Danske Film­skole, ECAM, Inter­na­tionale Film­schule Köln, Il Cen­tro Sper­i­men­tale di Cin­e­matografia, La Fémis, Lodz Film School, MIDPOINT Insti­tute, Tori­no Film Lab, Ser­i­al Eyes), led by the French Series Mania Insti­tute, agreed on a com­mon char­ter. The val­ues and objec­tives con­tained there­in, such as a strong Euro­pean iden­ti­ty, com­mit­ment to an eth­i­cal and sus­tain­able indus­try and the strength­en­ing of inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion, are intend­ed to fur­ther pro­mote coop­er­a­tion and exchange with­in the Euro­pean series indus­try.