The filmmakers of tomorrow

An up-and-coming director with two films to his name? Jerry Hoffmann from the Hamburg Media School has done just that. In the short filmMall is about a little boy who is caught stealing a toy mermaid from a shop. However, his narrow-minded, emphatically masculine father doesn't quite know how to deal with the situation. The short film90% like "Mall", is also running in the short film competition and is about 16-year-old Jean, who suffers from anorexia - or in his words, the "hottest feeling of self-control". However, the brash Lili makes him confront his problems.

Filmmaker Olga Delane runs with her filmDorotchka in the section "Kurz.Film.Tour. - The German Short Film Award". Films that won a German Short Film Award last year will be shown here. The film is set in a remote Siberian village and gives an insight into the life of 80-year-old Dorotchka, who reflects self-critically and astutely on love, regret and loneliness at the kitchen table. Executive Producer is the company Doppelplusultra from Hamburg. Olga Delane already had a small indie hit with "Love in Siberian", which is also set in the region.

The Hamburg University of Fine Arts is sending two up-and-coming talents into the race this year: Tom Otte presents his graduation filmFor reasons unknown (Short Film Competition), in which three people go on a forest excursion that ends in a game of hunter and hunted. In Salka Tiziana's debut filmFor the time being Otte took over the camera. The feature-length film is set in the Spanish Sierra Morena, in which a mother and her two children visit her mother-in-law's finca to meet the father of her children. However, when the father doesn't turn up, the family looks for their own way to meet each other and the place, which is both strange and familiar at the same time.

Randa Chahoud's cinema debut will also be screened in the "Feature Film Competition"Just a moment. The director, who has already been nominated twice for the Grimme Prize, portrays Kaim, a student who has lived in Hamburg for five years and wants to return to his old home to help his brother during the Syrian war. At home, however, his pregnant girlfriend Lilly is waiting for him. The film was produced by the Hamburg-based company "Neue Impuls Film".

Silence of the fish by Hilke Rönnfeldt can be seen in the "Short Film Competition" and is set on a fish farm in the Icelandic fjords. Teenager Saga lives here in isolation with her mother Hildur. The girl increasingly wonders whether it might not be time to leave.

The filmSouvenir will be shown in the MOP shortlist. An experimental film by Miriam Gossing and Lina Sieckmann that is on the trail of exactly what the title suggests.

Last but not least, we are looking forward toEquinox by Lena Knauss. The work, produced by the Hamburg-based company Tamtam Film, will have its world premiere in the "Feature Film Competition". What is it about? Alexander falls in love with the variety artist Paula. After her sudden death, he gets closer to Paula's sister Marlene - and ends up in emotional chaos.