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

On 20 Novem­ber 2025, Min­is­ter of State for Cul­ture and Media Wol­fram Weimer will present the Ger­man Short Film Award in Ham­burg. We are delight­ed to have received one award and two fur­ther nom­i­na­tions that are still in the run­ning for a Gold­en Lola.

The Ger­man Short Film Award 2025 in the cat­e­go­ry Medi­um-Length Film (30 to 78 min­utes run­ning time) goes to GARNELIUS by direc­tor and screen­writer Julia Ketel­hut (P: Melvyn Zeyns and Jonas Nemela, C: Rocío Díaz Freire) – a work of sub­tle sym­bol­ism and emo­tion­al clar­i­ty. Karl, who can hard­ly bear his father’s absence, seeks close­ness in his rela­tion­ship with his broth­er David. When an inex­plic­a­ble event upsets the fam­i­ly order, the bound­aries between real­i­ty and metaphor become blurred. GARNELIUS tells with poet­ic pre­ci­sion of long­ing, belong­ing and the qui­et pow­er that lies in fam­i­ly break­downs.

In the fea­ture film cat­e­go­ry with a run­ning time of up to 15 min­utes, MOTHER IS A NATURAL SINNER by Hoda Taheri and Boris Hadži­ja is in the run­ning for the Ger­man Short Film Award 2025. The con­clu­sion of their acclaimed tril­o­gy is ded­i­cat­ed to a woman who is forced by an unex­pect­ed preg­nan­cy to ques­tion her ideas of fem­i­nin­i­ty and self-deter­mi­na­tion. With ten­der inti­ma­cy and ana­lyt­i­cal acu­ity, Taheri and Hadži­ja cre­ate a cin­e­mat­ic state­ment about the body, guilt and free­dom – and how con­trol can be trans­formed into self-empow­er­ment.

Also nom­i­nat­ed for the Ger­man Short Film Award 2025, in the cat­e­go­ry of fea­ture films between 15 and 30 min­utes in length, is ICEBERGS by direc­tor Car­los Pereira – a qui­et, deeply mov­ing work about lone­li­ness and the search for close­ness. Theo, 66, lives in a world that bare­ly touch­es him any­more. Between the steam of a ham­mam and the dark­ness of an old cin­e­ma, he search­es for moments of human con­nec­tion. Only his encounter with Ida brings move­ment to his rigid­i­ty. With great calm and emo­tion­al pre­ci­sion, ICEBERGS paints the por­trait of a man who is slow­ly learn­ing to feel again.

The Ger­man Short Film Award is the most impor­tant and most high­ly endowed award for short films in Ger­many. With this award, the Ger­man gov­ern­ment hon­ours film­mak­ers for their courage in pro­duc­ing artis­ti­cal­ly ambi­tious works in short for­mat and encour­ages them to con­tin­ue on this path.

On Sat­ur­day, 22 Novem­ber 2025, we will open our doors to any­one inter­est­ed in study­ing film or want­i­ng to find out more about our acad­e­my.

The Open House offers the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain an insight into our cours­es, the acad­e­my itself, and the peo­ple behind it. Vis­i­tors can find out about the var­i­ous depart­ments, take part in open events, and speak to lec­tur­ers, staff, and stu­dents.

Whether you are just start­ing out or prepar­ing specif­i­cal­ly for an appli­ca­tion, the day will pro­vide valu­able insights into study­ing at the DFFB.

You can find the detailed pro­gramme here.