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

This anniver­sary edi­tion of the Berli­nale will take place from 20.2.–1.3.2020, and the DFFB will be rep­re­sent­ed at the fes­ti­val by two films:

The fea­ture film A FISH SWIMMING UPSIDE DOWN (director/​screenwriter: Eliza Petko­va; cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Con­stanze Schmitt; pro­duc­er: Kon­stan­tin Kann) will be screened in the 21st Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino, and the doc­u­men­tary film BLUE EYES AND COLORFUL MY DRESS from Poli­na Gumiela will be screened in the 43rd Gen­er­a­tion.

Both films are grad­u­a­tion films and will be cel­e­brat­ing their world pre­mieres at the Berli­nale.

BLUE EYES AND COLORFUL MY DRESS is nom­i­nat­ed twice: for the Crys­tal Bear for the Best Film and for the Grand Prix of the Gen­er­a­tion Kplus Inter­na­tion­al Jury for the Best Film.

A FISH SWIMMING UPSIDE DOWN is nom­i­nat­ed for the Com­pass Per­spec­tive Award and the Hein­er Carow Award from the DEFA foun­da­tion.

Morevo­er, the first fea­ture NAKED ANIMALS from our alum­na Melanie Waelde will be screened in the new­ly cre­at­ed Encoun­ters sec­tion. The fea­ture film is pro­duced by CZAR Film, and the screen­play was the writer and director’s DFFB grad­u­a­tion project.

We are keep­ing our fin­gers crossed for all films and are look­ing for­ward to an excit­ing fes­ti­val!

 

We are pleased to announce that three DFFB films will be screened at the most impor­tant fes­ti­vals in Jan­u­ary :

The 41st Film­fes­ti­val Max Ophüls Preis—the most impor­tant fes­ti­val for young Ger­man-speak­ing filmmakers—will take place dur­ing 20–26 Jan­u­ary, 2020, in Saar­brück­en. JIYAN (director/​screenwriter: Sühey­la Schwenk; cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Flo­ri­an Wurz­er; pro­duc­er: Sara Fazi­lat, Rox­ana Richters) will screen in the fea­ture film com­pe­ti­tion and LAND OF GLORY (direc­tor: Bor­bála Nagy; screen­writer: Bor­bála Nagy, Judit Anna Bán­házi, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Moritz Friese, pro­duc­er: Mar­gari­ta Amine­va) will screen in the medi­um-length com­pe­ti­tion.

DFFB Alum­ni Anna Koch and Julia Lemke will also have their debut movie GLITZER & STAUB screend in the documan­tary com­pe­ti­tion and the debut movie GIRAFFE by Alum­na Anna Sofie Hart­mann in the Watch­list sec­tion.

Next up is the 49th Inter­na­tionalem Film­fes­ti­val Rot­ter­dam (IFFR), which takes place dur­ing 22 January–2 Feb­ru­ary, 2020. IFFR is one of the most impor­tant film fes­ti­vals in Europe and the largest in Hol­land. In the Bright Future Com­pe­ti­tion, the film SEBASTIAN SPRINGT ÜBER GELÄNDER (director/​screenwriter: Cey­lan Ata­man-Checa; cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Albrecht von Grün­hagen; pro­duc­er: Jörg Daniel, Övünc Güvenisik, Simona Kos­to­va, Cey­lan Ata­man-Checa) will have its world pre­miere.

 

We warm­ly con­grat­u­late all the film teams. We are already look­ing for­ward to the new decade, which could not have start­ed in a bet­ter way!

At the Tallinn Black Nights Film Fes­ti­val, DFFB alum­nus and direc­tor Gre­gor Božič won the award for the best first fea­ture film with his grad­u­a­tion film STORIES FROM THE CHESTNUT WOODS!

The jury state­ment: In times of new for­mats, plat­forms and rush rhythm, it is so great to give this award to a film that holds the old torch of cin­e­ma itself. With pow­er­ful sense of real­i­ty with mag­ic, poet­ry and cru­el­ty; this tale stands for the dig­ni­ty of wait­ing for death while life pass­es by in such a strong way. Beau­ti­ful­ly shot and edit­ed, with a great sense of com­mu­nion with the peo­ple, land­scape, envi­ron­ment and the top­ic. It was like enjoy­ing a nice and hum­ble meal from the coun­try­side: the film left us the taste of chest­nuts.

Source: https://​poff​.ee/​e​n​/​a​w​a​r​d​s​-​o​f​-​t​h​e​-​2​3​r​d​-​t​a​l​l​i​n​n​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​n​i​g​h​t​s​-​f​i​l​m​-​f​e​s​t​i​v​al/

The award came with a €5000 prize, which will be divid­ed between the direc­tor and the film‘s pro­duc­er Mari­na Gumzi.

We warm­ly con­grat­u­late Gre­gor and the whole team!

You’re not sure yet­what study­ing at the DFFB can look be, look and feel like? Alessan­dra Albano, who com­plet­ed her FSJ at the DFFB, armed her­self with the cam­era and cap­tured many beau­ti­ful moments that shaped the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2018/​2019: from every­day life at the acad­e­my to numer­ous sem­i­nars and shoot­ing to our anu­al sum­mer par­ty!

You can apply until Jan­u­ary 7th/​8th for a study with the focus on scriptwrit­ing, cin­e­matog­ra­phy, direct­ing, pro­duc­ing or edit­ing & sound.

We’re already look­ing for­ward to the new tal­ents who will think, learn, shoot and cel­e­brate with us from Octo­ber on.

Click here for appli­ca­tion tasks and infor­ma­tion.

MUSIC AND APOCALYPSE

Fea­ture Film by alum­nus Max Linz

GOOD GIRL GONE BAD

Fea­ture Film by lec­tur­er Petra Lüschow

I WAS AT HOME, BUT…

Fea­ture Film by alum­na Angela Schan­elec

AREN‘T YOU HAPPY

Fea­ture Film by Susanne Hein­rich

The DFFB wel­comes its new stu­dents and looks for­ward to live­ly dis­cus­sions, vision­ary films and new accents in the Filmhaus at Pots­damer Platz! Work hard, have fun and enjoy film­mak­ing! We are already curi­ous about your films to come and we are very excit­ed about the tal­ent­ed addi­tion to the DFFB fam­i­ly!

Den­nis Schanz has tak­en on the roles of head writer and pro­duc­er to realise his series idea SKYLINES with Net­flix. SKYLINES is the first project devel­oped with­in Ser­i­al Eyes that will be screened on the largest inter­net enter­tain­ment ser­vice.

The series is about a tal­ent­ed hip-hop pro­duc­er who lives in Frank­furt am Main and receives the offer of a life­time. It will run exclu­sive­ly and world­wide on Net­flix from 27 Sep­tem­ber 2019.

Den­nis Schanz devel­oped the idea for the series with­in the Writ­ers’ Room of Ser­i­al Eyes. He was sup­port­ed by var­i­ous lec­tur­ers (includ­ing US showrun­ner Frank Spot­nitz and dra­maturge Nico­la Lusuar­di) and by his men­tor and pro­duc­er Klaus Zim­mer­mann, and then fol­lowed up on the project. With Net­flix, Schanz – tak­ing on the posi­tions of head writer, pro­duc­er, and showrun­ner – final­ly found a part­ner with whom to realise this unusu­al project, which is set between the hip-hop and crim­i­nal worlds.

Den­nis Schanz also enlist­ed three of his Ser­i­al Eyes col­leagues to be on the writ­ers’ team: Oliv­er Karan, Kim Zim­mer­mann, and Arne Ahrens have con­tributed to scripts for the six-part SYKLINES sea­son. The DFFB is also delight­ed by the par­tic­i­pa­tion of oth­er DFFB alum­ni in the pro­duc­tion: Luis Singer (pro­duc­er at Stick­Up Film­pro­duk­tion) and Jonas Dorn­bach and David Keitsch (pro­duc­ers at Kom­plizen­film) are the lead pro­duc­ers of the series, and DFFB alu­munus Max Erlen­wein direct­ed episodes 1–3.

We are very excit­ed and keep our fin­gers crossed for a suc­cess­ful series start!