On the occa­sion of the Ger­man Pres­i­den­cy of the Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union in 2020, the short film com­pe­ti­tion Europe in Film, which is fund­ed by the Ger­man Fed­er­al For­eign Office, will take place this year.

The DFFB films KATZENJAMMER by Flavio Yuri Rig­a­mon­ti and STADTPINGUIN by Florin­da Fris­ar­di will com­pete for the Audi­ence Award.

In KATZENJAMMER, a young refugee has to fight his way alone until he meets an old farmer and in STATDPINGUIN, two sis­ters have adven­tur­ous dreams.

From 04.12.2020 to 10.12.2020, watch the films at https://​www​.alle​ski​no​.de/ and then vote for the Audi­ence Award. There will also be talks with all film teams. It’s worth tak­ing a peak!

CHICHINETTE – THE ACCIDENTAL SPY, the doc­u­men­tary and grad­u­a­tion film by Nico­la Alice Hens, will be released in cin­e­mas nation­wide on Sep­tem­ber 17, 2020. To accom­pa­ny its the­atri­cal release, the direc­tor will per­son­al­ly present the film in select­ed cities. The film tells the hith­er­to lit­tle-known sto­ry of the French Jew Marthe Cohn alias Chichinette. Dur­ing the chaos of war, Cohn decid­ed to risk her life to work as an allied spy in Nazi Ger­many. Today, at the age of 100, she trav­els the world shar­ing her sto­ry with the younger gen­er­a­tions.

The film’s release was planned for March 19, 2020, but a nation­wide lock­down in Ger­many occurred only days before its sched­uled start. Now the time has come and CHICHINETTE – THE ACCIDENTAL SPY is final­ly com­ing to cin­e­mas.

CHICHINETTE – THE ACCIDENTAL SPY cel­e­brat­ed its Ger­man pre­miere at the Hofer Film­tage 2019.

Film Dis­cus­sions

FILM DISCUSSION on 12.09.2020 BERLIN KLICK Kino (with­in the Jew­ish Film Fes­ti­val Berlin & Bran­den­burg) – 6 pm – Guests: direc­tor Nico­la A. Hens and pro­duc­er Amos Geva

FILM DISCUSSION on 17.09.2020 WEIMAR Lichthaus cin­e­ma – 7 pm – Guest: direc­tor Nico­la A. Hens

FILM DISCUSSION on 18.09.2020 LEIPZIG Ciné­math­èque Leipzig – 7 pm – Guest: direc­tor Nico­la A. Hens

FILM DISCUSSION on 19.09.2020 BERLIN Cen­tral – time TBA – Guests: direc­tor Nico­la A. Hens and pro­duc­er Amos Geva

FILM DISCUSSION on 19.09.2020 BERLIN Moviemen­to – time TBA – Guests: direc­tor Nico­la A. Hens and pro­duc­er Amos Geva

Venues

Berlin, Bre­men, Dort­mund, Dres­den, Essen, Frank­furt, Freiburg, Hal­ber­stadt, Ham­burg, Hanover, Karl­sruhe, Leipzig, Munich, Mün­ster, Nurem­berg, Pots­dam, Salzgit­ter, Stuttgart, Tübin­gen, Ulm, Wies­baden, Würzburg, and more.

An updat­ed list of film dis­cus­sions and venues can be found on the web­site of miss­ing­FILMs.

About the film

At the age of 100, Marthe Cohn tours the world like a rock star. The demu­ni­tive white-haired woman pos­sess­es humour, flair, and lots of ener­gy. We quick­ly under­stand why she was once nick­named “Chichinette” (lit­tle pain in the neck). Her speech­es are enter­tain­ing and pep­pered with punch lines. With wit and charm Marthe cap­ti­vates her audi­ence with her incred­i­ble life sto­ry: Marthe Hoff­nung, a French Jew from Metz, who lost her fiancé and her sis­ter in the war, decid­ed in 1945 to risk her life to spy for the Allies in Nazi Ger­many and to fight for the war to come to an end. Her mis­sion was suc­cess­ful, but for six­ty years after the war she remained silent about her hero­ic deeds.

An Amos Geva film pro­duc­tion in co-pro­duc­tion with Merovee Films, the DFFB, and the RBB.

CHICHINETTE – THE ACCIDENTAL SPY tells the impres­sive sto­ry of Cohn’s life in atmos­pher­ic, part­ly ani­mat­ed images.

Source: miss­ing­FILMs

After the pan­dem­ic thwart­ed the Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val (Berli­nale) in April, we are delight­ed that the 16th edi­tion of achtung Berlin – new berlin film award film will soon be upon us.

Tak­ing place from 16–20 Sep­tem­ber, this edi­tion will fea­ture few­er films than usu­al, but they will all be screened in the best cul­tur­al meet­ing place for film­mak­ers and film lovers—the cin­e­ma!

The DFFB will be present at the fes­ti­val, which is the most impor­tant event for show­cas­ing film­mak­ing from Berlin and Bran­den­burg. This year’s pro­gramme includes the fol­low­ing con­tri­bu­tions from the DFFB:

1986 (R/​B: Lothar Her­zog, K: Philipp Baben der Erde, P: Romana Janik)

DAS WARTEN (R/​B: Lasse Hold­hus, K: Alexan­der Brack, P: Lisa Rol­ing)

DER TAG X (R: Katha­ri­na Riv­ilis, B: Katha­ri­na Riv­ilis, Samuel Chalela Puc­ci­ni, K: Giu­lia Schel­has, P: Cecil­ia Trautvet­ter)

FREISCHWIMMER (R: Gaya von Schwarze, B: Mirko Rachor, Gaya von Schwarze, Josephine Oleak, K: Raban Jakob Friedrich, P: Ibrahim-Utku Erdo­gan, Leonie Schäfer)

IN DEN BINSEN (R: Clara Zoe My-Linh von Arn­im, B: Andreas Kou­ba, K: Raban Jakob Friedrich, P: Elis­a­beth Köller)

JIYAN (R/​B: Sühey­la Schwenk, K: Flo­ri­an Wurz­er, P: Sara Fazi­lat, Rox­ana Richters)

LAND OF GLORY (R: Bor­bála Nagy, B: Bor­bála Nagy, Judit Anna Bán­házi, K: Moritz Friese, P: Mar­gari­ta Amine­va)

REVOLVO (R/​B: Fran­cy Fab­ritz, K: Anto­nia Lange, P: Sara Fazi­lat)

SEBASTIAN SPRINGT ÜBER GELÄNDER (R/​B: Cey­lan Ata­man-Checa, K: Albrecht von Grün­hagen, P: Jörg Daniel, Övünc Güvenisik, Simona Kos­to­va, Cey­lan Ata­man-Checa) und

TRÄUME VON RÄUMEN (R/​B: Matthias Lint­ner, K: Fran­cis­co Med­i­na, Matthias Lint­ner, Matil­da Mester, Car­los Andres Lopez, Christo­pher Aoun; P: Matthias Lint­ner, Eweli­na Rosińs­ka).

In addi­tion, the film FRITSCH´S PFUSCH will screen in the doc­u­men­tary com­pe­ti­tion sec­tion. The film fea­tures cin­e­matog­ra­phy by Paul Rohlfs and was pro­duced by Vic­tor Buza­l­ka (Direc­tor: Lisa Wagner/​KHM).

Two debut films of our gradutes can also be seen at the fes­ti­val:

GLITTER&DUST by Anna Koch and Julia Lemke and GIRAFFE by Anna Sofie Hart­mann.

For the full sched­ule, take a look at the pro­gramme book­let.

The 3rd Film­net­zw­erk Pitch takes place at the fes­ti­val on 18 Sep­tem­ber.

The Pitch is a show­case for film­mak­ers from Berlin. Dur­ing the Branchen­tag of the achtung berlin film fes­ti­val, a selec­tion of screen­writ­ers, direc­tors, and pro­duc­ers will present their long, short, and ser­i­al fic­tion, non-fic­tion, and ani­ma­tion projects to a pro­fes­sion­al audi­ence. The par­tic­i­pants will receive feed­back from pro­duc­tion, TV, and dis­tri­b­u­tion experts.

Due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the pitch this year will occur under nec­es­sary hygiene mea­sures. The pitch offers the par­tic­i­pants the fol­low­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties: to receive feed­back on the projects’ con­tent and form, to exam­ine rel­e­vant pro­duc­tion and eval­u­a­tion strate­gies, and to gain part­ners for their project.

We wish every­one a suc­cess­ful fes­ti­val!

At the award cer­e­mo­ny of this year’s Film­fes­ti­val Max Ophüls Preis, JIYAN (director/​screenwriter: Sühey­la Schwenk, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er: Flo­ri­an Wurz­er, pro­duc­er: Sara Fazi­lat, Rox­ana Richters) won the Ecu­meni­cal Jury Prize endowed with a €2500 award.

The rea­sons:

“This haunt­ing, inti­mate cham­ber play is strength­ened by the inter­play of the cam­era and set design. The film explores the way in which prej­u­dices with­in the fam­i­ly struc­ture and degrad­ing social real­i­ties are han­dled. It is pre­cise­ly the filmmaker’s refusal to use an unnec­es­sar­i­ly large dra­mat­ic arc and to favour a focus on the dai­ly con­cerns and hard­ships with­in the pri­vate sphere that bring forth the pro­tag­o­nists’ human­i­ty.

Clev­er­ly writ­ten, the film details the life of a young Syrian/​Kurdish fam­i­ly and their rel­a­tives in Ger­many.

At the end, the ques­tion asked is: What is a human life worth?”

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the whole team!

Cred­it: ffmop /​ Oliv­er Diet­ze

We are delight­ed to announce that DFFB grad­u­ate Lothar Her­zog won the 2019 Hof Gold Prize of the Friedrich Baur Foun­da­tion for his film 1986 dur­ing the award cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day evening. The Bavar­i­an Acad­e­my of Fine Arts in mem­o­ry of Heinz Bade­witz award­ed Her­zog a cer­ti­fied gold bar of 1 kg of fine gold worth approx­i­mate­ly €43,000. The prize also fea­tures a year of cre­ative advice to the direc­tor regard­ing the devel­op­ment of a new film.

Direc­tor Edgar Reitz (whose films include HEIMAT, DIE ANDERE HEIMAT) was the men­tor for the Hof Gold Prize 2018, which was award­ed to Luzie Loose for SCHWIMMEN. This year Bern­hard Sinkel, direc­tor, screen­writer, pro­duc­er, and head of the film depart­ment of the Bavar­i­an Acad­e­my of Fine Arts, has tak­en over this task.

The film is a co-pro­duc­tion of Rohfilm Pro­duc­tions GmbH and DFFB.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Lothar Her­zog and his whole team!

Pho­to­cre­d­it: Hofer Film­tage

This year—like pre­vi­ous years—several DFFB films will screen at the 53rd Inter­na­tion­al Hof Film Fes­ti­val, one of the old­est and most impor­tant film fes­ti­vals in Ger­many:

1986 (Dir./Script: Lothar Her­zog, Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Philipp Baben der Erbe, Prod.: Romana Janik, Ben­ny Drech­sel) will screen in the fea­ture film com­pe­ti­tion sec­tion. 1986 won the NO FEAR Award at First Steps and cel­e­brat­ed its world pre­miere at the 15th Zurich Film Fes­ti­val.

Chichinette — How I Acci­den­tal­ly Became a Spy (Dir./Script: Nico­la Alice Hens, Prod.: Amos Geva), which just won the Spe­cial Men­tion Award at the 35th HAIFA Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, will screen in the doc­u­men­tary com­pe­ti­tion sec­tion.

Both films will cel­e­brate their Ger­man pre­miere at the fes­ti­val.

Four short films from the DFFB will also be pre­sent­ed:

CHAOS (Dir./Script/Prod.: Samuel Auer, Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Lukas Eylandt)
FREISCHWIMMER (Dir.: Gaya von Schwarze, Script: Mirko Rachor, Gaya von Schwarze, Josephine Oleak, Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Raban Jakob Friedrich, Prod.: Ibrahim-Utku Erdo­gan, Leonie Schäfer)
NIGHTFALL (Dir./Script: Jose­fine Schef­fler, Prod.: Grischa Saut­ter)
REVOLVO (Dir./Script: Fran­cy Fab­ritz, Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Anto­nia Lange, Prod.: Sara Fazi­lat).

And our alum­ni will be present at the fes­ti­val too: Con­nie Walther with her film DIE RÜDEN. Der Film, Flo­ri­an Aign­er with ImNie­mand­s­land, and Jan Speck­en­bach with A.N.N.A.

We wish every­one a suc­cess­ful screen­ing. Enjoy the excit­ing dis­cus­sions, and we’re keep­ing our fin­gers crossed for the award cer­e­mo­ny!

The grad­u­a­tion film CHICHINETTE – HOW I ACCIDENTALLY BECAME A SPY by DFFB grad­u­ate Nico­la Alice Hens cel­e­brat­ed its world pre­miere last week at the 35th HAIFA Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val and won the Spe­cial Men­tion Award.

99-year-old Martha Cohn accept­ed the award per­son­al­ly. Con­grat­u­la­tions to the whole team!

©Ziv Amar

About the film:

The doc­u­men­tary tells the sto­ry of the French spy of Jew­ish ori­gin Marthe Cohn, bet­ter known as Chichinette, who after 60 years, final­ly breaks her silence and tells her extra­or­di­nary sto­ry. It is the sto­ry of a woman who, at just 4 feet 5 inch­es in height, beats the odds and fights the Nazis as a spy. At the age of 99, she now tours the world shar­ing her mes­sage to all gen­er­a­tions.