Sept 27th - Oct 6th
About Filmfest Hamburg
In eight permanent and several anually changing sections Filmfest Hamburg shows about 120 national and international feature and documentary films as German, European or world premiere. The many facets of the program range from sophisticated arthouse films to innovative mainstream cinema.
Filmfest Hamburg presents the debut films of young German and international filmmakers alongside films by famous directors of international cinema. Furthermore, special German TV productions find their unique way to the big screen.
Academy Award winners such as Clint Eastwood and Michael Moore, arthouse filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch and Peter Greenaway, Dogma-founder Lars von Trier and German directors such as Fatih Akin and Oliver Hirschbiegel represent the festival’s entire artistic plenitude.
In 2011 the 19th Filmfest Hamburg featured the following sections:
Northern Lights
An insight into the film landscape of the north. Eleven fiction and documentary films were opening windows into St. Pauli's Millerntor, to Bingo halls in Schleswig-Holstein or into Chinese provinces.
Three Colors Green
This section with films about our environment was successful in last year's program and once more included in 2011. Ten documentaries were showing the planet's most pressing issues – and solutions for them.
Agenda 11
39 films from 30 countries were offering a wide variety of the world's cinema: Young American independents, political films from the Arabic world and great cinematographic art from Russia.
Vitrina
This showcase of current productions from spanish- and portuguesespeaking countries offered 13 fiction and documentary films from the iberian peninsula and Latin America. Road-movies from Argentine to Coming-of-Age portraits from Mexico.
Voilá
An overview of francophone filmproductions. Twelve films from France, Belgium, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Mali and Canada.
Eurovisuell
Box office hits from other European countries. Hits from Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Latvia, Estonia and the Netherlands.
Iceland Deluxe
Nine modern classics of the still young history of the Icelandic cinema, showing vikings, German immigrants and pop stars of the north.
MUSIC!
Following last year's section ART! MUSIC! lets art forms film and music collide and produces varying emotions. Soft sounds, wild rock stars and musical newcomers made the theaters vibrate.
Eyes on Paris
This cinematographic hommage to the Seine-metropolis presented nine films from Marcel Carné to Christophe Honoré – in cooperation with Deichtorhallen Hamburg.
16:9
Television meets theater. 15 first-class German TV-productions as world premieres on the big screen.
Michel Kinder und Jugend Filmfest
Nine international fiction films for children and teenagers and a short film role for the little kids – presented in cooperation with LUCAS Children Filmfestival from Frankfurt.
Filmfest Hamburg presents the debut films of young German and international filmmakers alongside films by famous directors of international cinema. Furthermore, special German TV productions find their unique way to the big screen.
Academy Award winners such as Clint Eastwood and Michael Moore, arthouse filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch and Peter Greenaway, Dogma-founder Lars von Trier and German directors such as Fatih Akin and Oliver Hirschbiegel represent the festival’s entire artistic plenitude.
In 2011 the 19th Filmfest Hamburg featured the following sections:
Northern Lights
An insight into the film landscape of the north. Eleven fiction and documentary films were opening windows into St. Pauli's Millerntor, to Bingo halls in Schleswig-Holstein or into Chinese provinces.
Three Colors Green
This section with films about our environment was successful in last year's program and once more included in 2011. Ten documentaries were showing the planet's most pressing issues – and solutions for them.
Agenda 11
39 films from 30 countries were offering a wide variety of the world's cinema: Young American independents, political films from the Arabic world and great cinematographic art from Russia.
Vitrina
This showcase of current productions from spanish- and portuguesespeaking countries offered 13 fiction and documentary films from the iberian peninsula and Latin America. Road-movies from Argentine to Coming-of-Age portraits from Mexico.
Voilá
An overview of francophone filmproductions. Twelve films from France, Belgium, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Mali and Canada.
Eurovisuell
Box office hits from other European countries. Hits from Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Latvia, Estonia and the Netherlands.
Iceland Deluxe
Nine modern classics of the still young history of the Icelandic cinema, showing vikings, German immigrants and pop stars of the north.
MUSIC!
Following last year's section ART! MUSIC! lets art forms film and music collide and produces varying emotions. Soft sounds, wild rock stars and musical newcomers made the theaters vibrate.
Eyes on Paris
This cinematographic hommage to the Seine-metropolis presented nine films from Marcel Carné to Christophe Honoré – in cooperation with Deichtorhallen Hamburg.
16:9
Television meets theater. 15 first-class German TV-productions as world premieres on the big screen.
Michel Kinder und Jugend Filmfest
Nine international fiction films for children and teenagers and a short film role for the little kids – presented in cooperation with LUCAS Children Filmfestival from Frankfurt.
Chronicle
The 50s
The Hamburg "Filmtage" ("film days"), "Filmwochen" ("film weeks") and "Kinotage" ("cinema days") already existed in the Nineteen Fifties. They were organized and arranged by Hamburg's film economy - Real-Film, above all - together with German distribution companies.
1968
Young filmmakers got together and organized the "1. Hamburger Filmschau" ("1st Hamburg film show"), a weekend that has entered the history books of the young German film as a 'film-happening'.
The 70s
A few years later, various repertory theatres from all over the republic founded the "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Kino" ("cinema association"), whose headquarters have since remained in Hamburg, where they have been organizing the annual "Hamburger Kinotage" since 1974.
1979
In the "Hamburger Erklärung" ("Hamburg declaration"), filmmakers Hark Bohm, Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff and Wim Wenders, a.o., opposed heteronomy of the German film by "committees, institutions and interest groups" and initiated the "Filmfest der Filmemacher" ("filmmakers' filmfestival").
1986
On 29.10.1979 the "Hamburger Filmbüro e.V." ("Hamburg film office - reg. assoc.") was founded by filmmakers from Hamburg, which brought the (since 1986) internationally significant "Europäische Low Budget Film Forum" into existence; a film show and film discussion with participating directors and producers who were still unknown at the time, such as Derek Jarman, Stephen Frears and Lars von Trier.
1991
In order to bundle energies and put dwindling public funds to more effective use, the Low Budget Film Forum and the Kinotage joined forces end 1991, to coexist in the future as "Filmfest Hamburg". Founding partners were the AG Kino e.V. and the Hamburger Filmbüro e.V. .
1992
The Filmfest Hamburg took place for the first time in 1992, under the direction of Rosemarie Schatter.
1994
The film producer Gerhard von Halem took over as festival director. Despite deliberate references to its predecessor-events, this "new" Hamburg festival was something entirely different to the Kinotage or the Low Budget Film Forum. While "young cinema" and "independent film" still took up central positions, the atmosphere of Filmfest Hamburg has been increasingly characterized by stars and glamour since 1994.
1995 - 2002
Josef Wutz was director of the festival from 1995 to 2002. Under his direction, the festival was continually elaborated and was established within the industry and the audience as a festival for independent films. Furthermore, the festival now supplied film productions from Hamburg with their own display window. Also, the new media and their businesses received a platform for presentation and discussion at the Filmfest Hamburg.
2003
Early January 2003, Albert Wiederspiel takes over the direction of Filmfest Hamburg. Since then the variety of national and international films is constantly expanding. For its 19th edition Filmfest Hamburg showed 151 movies coming from 41 countries.
The Hamburg "Filmtage" ("film days"), "Filmwochen" ("film weeks") and "Kinotage" ("cinema days") already existed in the Nineteen Fifties. They were organized and arranged by Hamburg's film economy - Real-Film, above all - together with German distribution companies.
1968
Young filmmakers got together and organized the "1. Hamburger Filmschau" ("1st Hamburg film show"), a weekend that has entered the history books of the young German film as a 'film-happening'.
The 70s
A few years later, various repertory theatres from all over the republic founded the "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Kino" ("cinema association"), whose headquarters have since remained in Hamburg, where they have been organizing the annual "Hamburger Kinotage" since 1974.
1979
In the "Hamburger Erklärung" ("Hamburg declaration"), filmmakers Hark Bohm, Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff and Wim Wenders, a.o., opposed heteronomy of the German film by "committees, institutions and interest groups" and initiated the "Filmfest der Filmemacher" ("filmmakers' filmfestival").
1986
On 29.10.1979 the "Hamburger Filmbüro e.V." ("Hamburg film office - reg. assoc.") was founded by filmmakers from Hamburg, which brought the (since 1986) internationally significant "Europäische Low Budget Film Forum" into existence; a film show and film discussion with participating directors and producers who were still unknown at the time, such as Derek Jarman, Stephen Frears and Lars von Trier.
1991
In order to bundle energies and put dwindling public funds to more effective use, the Low Budget Film Forum and the Kinotage joined forces end 1991, to coexist in the future as "Filmfest Hamburg". Founding partners were the AG Kino e.V. and the Hamburger Filmbüro e.V. .
1992
The Filmfest Hamburg took place for the first time in 1992, under the direction of Rosemarie Schatter.
1994
The film producer Gerhard von Halem took over as festival director. Despite deliberate references to its predecessor-events, this "new" Hamburg festival was something entirely different to the Kinotage or the Low Budget Film Forum. While "young cinema" and "independent film" still took up central positions, the atmosphere of Filmfest Hamburg has been increasingly characterized by stars and glamour since 1994.
1995 - 2002
Josef Wutz was director of the festival from 1995 to 2002. Under his direction, the festival was continually elaborated and was established within the industry and the audience as a festival for independent films. Furthermore, the festival now supplied film productions from Hamburg with their own display window. Also, the new media and their businesses received a platform for presentation and discussion at the Filmfest Hamburg.
2003
Early January 2003, Albert Wiederspiel takes over the direction of Filmfest Hamburg. Since then the variety of national and international films is constantly expanding. For its 19th edition Filmfest Hamburg showed 151 movies coming from 41 countries.
