A USEFUL GHOST (Pee Chai Dai Ka)

Director: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke / Dark Fantasy-Comedy / 124 Minutes / Thailand, France, Singapore / 2025 

Production: Cattleya Paosrijaroen, Soros Sukhum (185 Films Co., Ltd.)

Worried about her husband being allergic to dust, Nat, a recently-dead woman, returns as a ghost possessing a vacuum cleaner to clean the house and protect her family from other vengeful ghosts in the house. To become a useful ghost, she needs to get rid of the useless ones.

BALEARIC 

Director: Ion de Sosa / Fantasy-Drama / 75 Minutes / Spain, France / Spring 2025

Production: Marina Perales Marhuenda, Xavier Rocher (La Fabrica Nocturna Cinéma)

Three ferocious dogs keep a group of young people prisoners in a pool belonging to a luxurious house they have sneaked into, while neighbors gather at a party in a villa nearby to celebrate the start of summer. It’s St John’s Eve, a favourable day for magic.

BEAUTIFUL SOULS (Schöne Seelen)

Director: Tom Schreiber / Drama / 110 Minutes / Germany / Autumn 2025

Production: Ingmar Trost (Sutor Kolonko)

It’s summer 1996. Freddy (August Diehl), an eternally youthful odd jobber accidentally arrives in a Spanish holiday resort. At first, he believes he has landed in paradise, but the first season is not yet over when he becomes the centre of the grotesque disintegration of the drop-out community he had just found.

CICADAS (Zikaden)

Director: Ina Weisse / Drama / 100 Minutes / Germany, France / Fall 2025

Production: Felix von Boehm (Lupa Film GmbH)

The film tells the story of a friendship between two dissimilar women: single mother Anja (Saskia Rosendahl), who tries to keep herself and her daughter afloat with various jobs, and Isabell (Nina Hoss), who looks after her parents in need of care and whose relationship with her husband Philipp (Vincent Macaigne) is put to the test.

DOHA – THE RISING SUN

Director: Eimi Imanishi / Drama / 95 Minutes / USA, Spain France / 2025

Production: Shrihari Sathe, Belen Sanchez Silvero, Virginie Lacombe, Eric Dupont, Eimi Imanishi, Damon Owlia, Jayne Baron Sherman (Dialectic, Incognito Films, Un Capricho de Producciones, Virginie Films)

Disheartened by her deportation from Europe, Mariam is forced to return home to Western Sahara.  Adrift in the very place that was once her home, she desperately searches for the means to assert agency over her own life. 

FABULA 
Director: Michiel ten Horn / Drama / 120 Minutes / The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium / May 2025

Production: Sander Verdonk, Thomas den Drijver (New Ams Film Company B.V.)

Desperately searching for a solution to a drug deal disastrously gone wrong, Jos together with his father Lei and his unwanted son-in-law Ozgur goes on a mad adventure through the Dutch province Limburg in search of a bag of money. But what Jos really grapples with, is in fact the continuing, agonizing question: Who or what is punishing me?

FILOMINATION

Director: Aleksandra Odić / Drama / 100 Minutes / Germany / 2025

Production: Aleksandra Odić, Leonie Schäfer (Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin)

Filo, in her 30s, is an artist living in Berlin. She is single, has no children, little money and an active sex life. When her biological clock starts ticking she has to make a decision. But Filo doesn’t feel like counting down her oocytes.

FOREIGNER (Forastera)

Director: Lucía Aleñar Iglesias / Drama / 100 Minutes / Spain, Sweden, Italy / Winter 2024, Spring 2025

Production: Marta Cruañas, Tono Folguera, Ariadna Dot (Lastor Media)

Catalina will see how her vacation is dramatically disrupted by the absurd and violent death of her grandmother, which only she witnesses.

FUCKING FREEDOM (Ficken für Freiheit)

Director: Hille Norden / Drama / 115 Minutes / Germany / 2025

Production: Annette Unger, Sven Rudat, Paula Lichte (Leitwolf Filmproduktion GmbH)

Schoolmates Nore and Jonna move in together in their early 20s and party hard. It becomes clear tough that “schoolyard bitch” Nore was never the young femme fatale Jonna assumed, but an overwhelmed young girl. As Nore tries to find a suitable perspective on what has happened, a genuine friendship emerges.

I WANT IT ALL (Ich will alles!)

Director: Luzia Schmid / Documentary / 90 Minutes / Germany / March 2025

Production: Thomas Kufus (Zero One Film GmbH)

“I Want It All” is a documentary about Hildegard Knef and how she survived worldwide successes and crushing defeats without ever losing her dignity and humor. A reflection on fame and its transience and on growing old in showbiz, told with archive material from six decades.

LATE SHIFT

Director: Stefanos Tsivopoulos / Social Drama / 90 Minutes / Greece, Romania / Fall 2025

Production: Nikos Smpiliris (Boo Productons)

A single mother from Romania with a history of activism struggles to fit into Greek society. After being unfairly fired from her job her activist instincts kick back in, and her quest for justice clashes with her need to belong.

LOST LAND

Director: Akio Fujimoto / Drama / 100 Minutes / Japan, France, Germany, Malaysia / March 2025

Production: Christian Jilka, Kazutaka Watanabe (Scarlet Visions GmbH, E.x.N K.K.)

Shafi and his sister Somira, two young Rohingyas, undertake a dangerous journey from their refugee camp in Bangladesh on their way to Malaysia, in the hope of being reunited with their family.

MADE IN EU 

Director: Stephan Kommandarev / Social Drama / 110 Minutes / Bulgaria, Germany, Czech Republic / 2025

Production: Stephan Komandarev, Katya Trichkova (Argo Film)

When small town factory worker Iva is revealed to be the first case of covid in rural Bulgaria, albeit not having left her town in years, she is faced with an entire community turned against her. As the death toll rises, her demonization spirals into a rabbit hole of revelations on the factory’s exploitation, the capitalization of Bulgaria and the machinery driving Europe itself.

MARIELLE

Director: Frédéric Hambalek / Fantasy-Drama / 93 Minutes / Germany / Q2 2025

Production: Philipp Worm, Tobias Walker (Walker + Worm Film GmbH)

Marielle (12) develops telepathic abilities overnight. She can suddenly see and hear what her parents are doing in their private lives – day and night. The girl’s idyllic world falls apart, and the parents struggle with how to deal with this complete surveillance by their own daughter.

MINIMALS IN A TITANIC WORLD (presented in the frame of FOCUS ON AFRICA)

Director: Mbabazi Sharangabo Philbert Aimé / Drama / 79 Minutes / Rwanda, Germany, Cameroon / Early 2025

Production: Ishimwe Samuel (Imitana Productions)

After The mysterious death of the young Serge, his girl friend and best friend have to deal with the grief, which bonds them together.

OUR FATHER (Oče Naš)

Director: Goran Stanković  / Drama / 95 Minutes / Serbia, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia / February 2025

Production: Snežana van Houwelingen (This and That Productions)

Dejan, a drug addict, arrives for treatment at an isolated monastery commune where he becomes the right hand of the authoritative Father Branko, until the priest takes his violent methods too far. 

PATERNAL LEAVE 

Director: Alissa Jung / Coming-of-Age-Drama / 110 Minutes / Germany, Italy / 2025

Production: Cécile Tollu-Polonowski, Michael Weber, Viola Fügen, Sonia Rovai, Mario Gianani (The Match Factory, Wildside)

Alone and quite angry, a young German girl travels to the lonely winter coast of northern Italy to meet her biological father. Full of questions and longing, she confronts him with her existence and fights for acceptance, love and honesty. 

RUN

Director: Uwe Boll / Drama / 110 Minutes / Germany, Croatia / 2025

Production: Michael Roesch (Bolu Filmproduktions- und Verleih GmbH)

RUN follows a boat carrying migrants from various African countries through the Mediterranean Sea to Italy. The film focuses on the storylines of the migrants, locals, and tourists.

SEA OF GLASS (Thalassa apo gyali)

Director: Alexis Alexiou / Crime Thriller / 125 Minutes / Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus / Spring 2025

Production: Afroditi Nikolaidou, Elina Psykou, Alexis Alexiou (Tugo Tugo Productions)

A story of violence and how it is passed from men onto the earth; a story about two women who, stuck in a run-down off-season seaside resort, come together to confront the past, family stereotypes, and the closed provincial community.

SLEEPLESS CITY (Ciudad Sin Sueño) (presented in cooperation with TorinoFilmLab – Museo Nazionale del Cinema // TFL Coming Soon)

Director: Guillermo García López / Drama / 102 Minutes / Spain, France / May 2025

Production: Damien Megherbi, Justin Pechberty,  Marina García López (Les Valeurs, Sintagma Films)

La Cañada Real, outskirts of Madrid. Tonino, a 15-year-old Roma boy, has always lived here with his family and his best friend Bilal, lulled by the gypsy legends. But everything falls apart when he discovers that his best friend is leaving La Cañada for good. 

STRAIGHT OUTTA SPACE (Straatcoaches vs. Aliens)

Director: Michael Middlekoop / Comedy, Science Fiction / 102 Minutes / The Netherlands / February 2025

Production: Tom van Blommestein, Leontine Petit (Lemming Film)

Best friends Amin (Shahine El-Hamus) and Mitchell (Daniël Kolf) work as street coaches in the lively neighbourhood of Schijndrecht. Not exactly a flashy job, but that changes when residents suddenly turn into creepy, slimy creatures. Together with a motley crew of local residents, the duo gets the ultimate chance to prove themselves.

TALES FROM CHRISTIANIA (Fortællinger fra Christiania)

Director: Karl Friis Forchhammer / Documentary / 90 Minutes / Denmark / May 2025

Production: Rikke Tambo Andersen (Tambo Film Aps)

Explore the strengths and pitfalls of “Christiania”, a consensus-based society of 800 people in Copenhagen, where all is tolerated, revealing the challenges of one of the world’s biggest social experiments ever to exist.

THE BADGERS (Grevlingene)

Director: Paul Magnus Lundø / Family-Adventure / 90 Minutes / Norway / February 2025

Production: David L. Leader (73 Eyes Film Production)

A spirited orphan boy revolts against his hyper-woke foster mother to realize his dream of becoming a skilled Scout, like his deceased father.

THE HERD (presented in the frame of FOCUS ON AFRICA)

Director: Daniel Etim Effiong / Thriller, Action, Drama / 126 Minutes / Nigeria, USA / 2025

Production: Feyifunmi Oginni (Filmone Studios)

When a wedding guest is kidnapped by bandits, his wife goes through hell to ensure he returns home alive.

THE PRANK

Director: Benjamin Heisenberg / Comedy / 90 Minutes / Germany, Switzerland / Spring 2025

Production: Matthias Miegel, Andreas Banz (Kundschafter Filmproduktion GmbH)

An April Fool‘s joke by young Chinese house guest Xi Zhōu (12) gets completely out of hand and catapults Lucas Roosen (12) and his family out of their daily routine. In the vortex of a hilarious screwball comedy, they first slide into total chaos, only to find their way back to each other as a family. They will never be the same again after the series of events that unfolds.

TRUCK MAMA (presented in the frame of FOCUS ON AFRICA)

Director: Zipporah Nyaruri / Documentary / 80 Minutes / Kenya, South Africa, The Netherlands / 2025

Production: Zipporah Nyaruri (Visual Asili c/o Zippy Creatives)

Driving a 20t truck on East Africa’s notorious highway, also known as the ‘Devil’s Highway’, a mother’s guarded freedom faces an ultimate test when she gives birth to her youngest child.

TRUTH OR DARE

Director: Maja Classen / Documentary Experimental, Gender & Sexuality / 75 Minutes / Germany / April 2025

Production: Saralisa Volm (Poison GmbH)

An exploration of desire in the queer sex positive party scene in Berlin, in times when the spaces for it seemed possibly lost forever.   

VLAM 

Director: Daphne Lucker / Drama / 85 Minutes / The Netherlands / Early 2025

Production: Derk-Jan Warrink, Koji Nelissen (Kepler Film)

Temporarily removed from her home, teenager Olivia has to find her place in a crisis shelter between equally damaged peers and well-meaning social workers, and gains new insights about herself and the symbiotic relationship with her mother.

ŻEJTUNE

Director: Alex Camilleri / Musical / 103 Minutes / Malta, Germany, Qatar / 2025

Production: Alex Camilleri, Oliver Mallia (Solari Productions Ltd., Pelikola Ltd.)

Mar, a young woman, is determined to claim her family inheritance and leave the small island of Malta behind for good. But an encounter with Nenu, an elderly troubadour, introduces her to the mesmerising art of Maltese folk singing, tempting her to rediscover a love for the country she wishes to escape.

The selected projects since 2018