Film-Norden at the Max Ophüls Prize

98 films in 47 film programmes: Despite the coronavirus pandemic, film fans can look forward to a strong newcomer programme this year - and stream it from the comfort of their own homes. Medium-length films and short films are bundled into film blocks and offered as packages. Individual tickets and tickets for film programmes (short and medium-length films) cost €8 each. AllFilm programmes will be accompanied by audience discussions (live!) with the filmmakers on the ZOOM platform. For the film industry, this year's industry programme will once again includeMOP Industry 2021.

If you want to watch films with North German participation, read on now:

Directors and Hamburg Media School graduate Shahab Habibi places the Iranian political refugee Pouya at the centre of his fictional story. Pouya lives in Hamburg and does everything he can to bring his wife Nikta to safety, who is still in her home country. However, as a political activist and video maker, he finds it difficult to trust strangers.

Directors Habibi was born in Iran in 1979 and left the country in 2016 due to the dangers posed by his critical views on the political and religious system in his home country. In 2017, he completed the "Digital Media for Refugee Media Professionals" programme at the Hamburg Media School and was admitted to the 2-year master's programme in film directing there in 2018. "Ba Ham (Together)" is his graduation film. The script was written by HMS graduate Maurice Sinner.

Because grandma is unable to look after the parcels, Kati goes on a parcel delivery tour. The eight-year-old speaks better German than her Afghan father Faruk and proves to be a capable helper. "Bambirak" is the directorial debut of Director of Photography and Oscar winner Zamarin Wahdat. The Hamburg native also wrote the script. The film will also be shown at the renowned Sundance Film Festival 2021 at the end of January. Executive Producer is Joy Jorgensen (Killjoy).

Leonie Kellein studied at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg and wants to build a bridge between the classic film genre, her anthropological interest and the visual arts with her short film. For her, there is no such thing as "the gaze", neither that of the human nor that of the animal, but instead transitions, transient sovereignties and opportunities. But what about the presence of the drone, a camera? Between the subjectivity of a drone, the subjectivity of a rabbit or that of a child, the question is posed again and again: Who is watching? How do they look? And where?

Directors and Hamburg Media School graduate Jerry Hoffmann has made it into the programme of the Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival for the second time in a row: his graduation film "I am" (script: Florens Huhn) is about Noé, a reclusive woman who one day finds a motionless android in the forest, takes her home and reactivates her. It is the beginning of a strange relationship. Noé realises far too late that the android is about to copy her personality.

Last year, two of his short films, "MALL" and "90%", were screened at the Max Ophüls Prize and received several awards.

A documentary in the middle of Wendland: people are founding a village in one of the structurally weakest areas of Germany. It is to become a model village for the future of Europe for a hundred old people, a hundred refugees and a hundred young people. It is a mammoth project, a bureaucratic obstacle course, an idealised utopia - supported and spun by very special protagonists who see an opportunity in this project for a variety of reasons.

The co-production by KOBERSTEIN FILM and NDR was made under the Directors of the two filmmakers Antonia Traulsen and Claire Roggan. Traulsen herself lives on a farm in Wendland, while Roggan heads the Documentary section of the Wendland Shorts short film festival.