About the Filmfest
More than 140 international feature and documentary films are celebrating their German, European or world premiere in altogether eight sections at the 16th Filmfest Hamburg. The many facets of the programme range from cinematically highbrow arthouse films to innovative mainstream cinema, from road movies to melodrama, from comedies and westerns to thrillers and children�s films.Filmfest Hamburg presents the debut films of young German and international filmmakers alongside films by famous and infamous directing giants of international cinema.
Academy Award winners such as Clint Eastwood, Jodie Foster and Michael Moore, arthouse filmmakers such as Aki Kaurism�ki, Jim Jarmusch, Peter Greenaway and Wim Wenders, Dogma-founder Lars von Trier and German directors such as Fatih Akin, Ayse Polat and Oliver Hirschbiegel represent the festival�s entire � and often controversial � artistic plenitude.
Filmfest Hamburg features the following sections:
Agenda
This section encompasses the whole range of the festival programme. It presents a multifaceted spectrum of political, societal and social topics in the broadest sense, and their respective artistic cinematic realisation.
Northern Lights (Nordlichter)
The �Northern Lights� section is a display window for feature and documentary films from Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. It presents films that are set in the North, were shot in the North and star �northern lights�.
Vitrina
The display window for current film productions from Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries.
Voil�!
�Voil�!� presents feature films from France or from countries associated with French culture in the widest sense.
Made-For-TV Movies (TV-Spielfilme im Kino)
The section �Made-For-TV Movies� features current German TV productions, most of which are celebrating their world premiere at Filmfest Hamburg.
eurovisuell
This section presents the greatest audience successes from different European countries: what do the French parley about? What cracks up the Greeks? What sends chills down the Swedes� spines � and makes them love it?
Deluxe
In this series, Filmfest Hamburg shows film classics from an annually varying country. 2008 Portugal was partner of Deluxe. Deluxe presents six film classics and newcomer from the sixties up to today. The most recent guest countries were Belgium, Turkey, Austria and Finland.
Michel Children's and Youth Film Festival (Michel Kinder- und JugendFilmfest)
The Children�s and Youth Film Section presents German and international feature, documentary and animation films from 26th September to 1th October.
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.
In 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 Erkl�rung" ("Hamburg declaration"), filmmakers Hark Bohm, Werner Herzog, Volker Schl�ndorff 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 Filmb�ro e.V." ("Hamburg film office - reg. assoc.") was founded by filmmakers from Hamburg, which brought the (since 1986) internationally significant "Europ�ische 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 Filmb�ro e.V. .
1992
The Filmfest Hamburg took place for the first time in 1992, under the direction of Rosemarie Schatter.
1994
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
Josef Wutz took over the festival in 1995-2002. 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.
2003/2004
Early January 2003, Albert Wiederspiel took over the direction of Filmfest Hamburg.
