Dear Readers,

We’ve got some exciting film festivals coming up over the next few months – and we are particularly pleased that a number of German productions and co-productions will also be appearing again in the line-ups this year. This comes after the strong first half of 2026. Following in the wake of the Golden Bear being awarded to İlker Çatak’s YELLOW LETTERS at the Berlinale and Visar Morina’s SHAME AND MONEY winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, a German production in the Cannes Competition also made an impression on the jury: THE DREAMED ADVENTURE by Valeska Grisebach took home the Jury Prize. Other awards in Cannes included for the German co-productions EVERYTIME and FATHERLAND (see the profile of the actor August Diehl) as well as for the German short film “VATERLAND” OR A BULE NAMED YANTO. Meanwhile, HIJAMAT had an impressive world premiere in Karlovy Vary’s Crystal Globe Competition.

Numerous German productions will also be featured in Locarno’s competition sections, including OBJET A by Ann Oren – see also the profile in this issue on pages 8 and 9 – and I RARELY WAKE UP DREAMING by Isabelle Stever in the Main Competition. The German-Austrian production I IS ANOTHER by Felix Randau can be seen on the Piazza Grande. The director explains in a profile in this issue of GFQ how he came to make a film about the curious story of Felix Kersten, Heinrich Himmler’s former masseur.

The majority German production DAU by Ilya Khrzhanovsky will be screened in Venice’s Main Competition. The festival’s programme will also include the German production OASIS by Jannis Lenz in the Orizzonti section as well as the two documentaries FROM INSIDE OUT – THE ARCHITECTURE OF PETER ZUMTHOR by Wim Wenders and IMPERIUM by Sergei Loznitsa as Out of Competition screenings. In addition, the independent sidebar of Giornate degli Autori has invited the two majority German productions – CAMOUFLAGE by Mykyta Gibalenko and I PLANT MY HAND IN THE GARDEN by Hoda Taheri and Boris Hadžija – to screen in its competition.

We are also delighted that the German productions KRUX by Tony Vahl and MEMORIES OF A FOREST by Katharina Rabl have been invited to Toronto International Film Festival’s Discovery section which focuses on debut and second films by up-and-coming directors and filmmakers from around the world and has previously served as a springboard for several German directors. KRUX has also been invited by San Sebastian to screen in the Official Selection, while Massih Parsaei’s LOVERS SLEEP ALONE has been programmed in the New Directors section.

25 years of the Minitraité represent a remarkable German-French success story and around 250 supported co-productions. In this issue, we look at the development and future of this collaboration – and discuss these issues with the FFA CEO Peter Dinges.

Simone Baumann, Managing Director