Plenty of north at Filmfest Hamburg 2022

On the trail of a serial killer: In the six-part Amazon Prime series "Gefesselt", Director Florian Schwarz focuses on the crimes of acid barrel murderer Raik Doormann (Oliver Masucci), who was up to mischief in and around Hamburg in the early 80s and 90s. Inspired by a true criminal case, the team filmed at numerous original locations in Hamburg - including Rahlstedt, Volksdorf, Altona and St Pauli.

Directors Ali Abbasi's "Holy Spider", a dark German-Danish co-production that has already celebrated its premiere in Cannes, will be screened at this year's film festival. In this thriller, a journalist delves into the dark underbelly of the Iranian city of Mashhad to get to the bottom of the serial murders of prostitutes by the so-called "spider killer". He believes he has to cleanse the streets of sinners. Abbasi's film "Border" won the main prize in the "Un Certain Regard" section at Cannes in 2018. Lead actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi won the Palme d'Or for Best Actress for "Holy Spider", part of whose post production took place in Hamburg.

Hamburg filmmaker Helena Wittmann has already celebrated the world premiere of her second feature film "Human Flowers of Flesh" at the Locarno Film Festival. The film tells the story of Ida, who lives on a sailing ship with her crew of five. During a stopover in Marseille, she becomes aware of the mysterious male world of the French Foreign Legion and decides to follow in their footsteps across the Mediterranean.

The name says it all: Violetta, a curious and cheeky fairy who unfortunately can only conjure up the wrong things, gets lost in the human world. In order to find her way back to the fairy world, she teams up with the human girl Maxie and discovers her true nature. Directors Caroline Oringer's animated adventure was produced by Ella Filmproduktion in Hamburg.

Hamburg-based Directors Kilian Riedhof ("Gladbeck", "His Last Race") dedicates his new drama "You Will Not Have My Hate" to the terrorist attacks at the "Bataclan" club in Paris. It tells the true story of Antoine Leiris, who lost his beloved wife Hélène in the terrorist attack on the Bataclan club in Paris. In a moving social media post, he counters the hatred of the attackers with his love for his three-year-old son. In a state of emergency between media attention and endless grief, Antoine now has to find his way in the new reality. The film had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival.

The Documentary "One in a Million" by Joyan Thome focuses on two girls on different continents: while US gymnast Whitney Bjerken shares her life on social media channels, Yara from Schleswig-Holstein follows her on YouTube and takes part in her life from afar. The film will be shown as part of the MICHEl Kinder und Jugend Filmfest.

A true crime documentary series about Hamburg and Made in Hamburg. In Reeperbahn Special Unit 65, showrunner and Director Georg Tschurtschenthaler and Executive Producer / Script Writer Christian Beetz show how brutal things were on Hamburg's most sinful mile in the 1980s - from a police perspective. Former police officers and investigators as well as neighbourhood celebrities, including "Zur Ritze" owner Carsten Marek and Kalle Schwensen, have their say. Directors Georg Tschurtschenthaler and his creative team combine previously unpublished archive material with interview sequences and fictional elements in their series.

In his new film, Hamburg cult director Fatih Akin brings the eventful life of rapper and entrepreneur Xatar to the big screen. The biopic, in which Emilio Sakraya has taken on the leading role, was filmed in Hamburg for around a week. "Rheingold" celebrates its world premiere at Filmfest Hamburg and will be released in cinemas on 27 October.

Ruben Östlund's social satire has already been awarded the Palme d'Or for best film in Cannes - now Hamburg audiences can also enjoy Östlund's new film, about two models who go on a luxury cruise in the South Seas, before its official cinema release. The trip ends in an absurd disaster when the ship sinks and a few survivors manage to save themselves on a deserted island. In addition to US superstar Woody Harrelson, the film also stars German actress Iris Berben. Part of the post production and the team come from Hamburg.

The team around festival director Albert Wiederspiel has chosen a Hamburg story as this year's opening film. Directors Hans-Christian Schmid's film is based on the novel of the same name by Johann Scheerer, who describes the kidnapping of his father Jan Philipp Reemtsma from his own perspective as a 13-year-old. "We Are Next of Kin" was filmed on location in Hamburg and North Rhine-Westphalia. In addition to Claude Heinrich as Johann and Adina Vetter as Ann Kathrin Scheerer, Justus von Dohnányi, Hans Löw, Yorck Dippe, Enno Trebs and Fabian Hinrichs also appear in front of the camera.