With 22 cinema and television film world premieres, the Hamburg Film Festival has achieved a new record of its own – and is also showing many other films from the international festivals in Cannes, Locarno and Venice for the first time in Germany. Among them is the Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness” by Ruben Östlund about the fashion industry’s self-indulgence. The Locarno contribution “You won’t get my hatred”, in which the Hamburg director Kilian Riedhof tells of a survivor of the Bataclan massacre and “The Banshees Of Inisherin” by Martin McDonagh about the ghosts of an Irish island, are also in the program. The latter was recently awarded the prize for the best screenplay in Venice and leading actor Colin Farrell was honored as best actor. One of the world premieres is “Rheingold”, the new film by Hamburg director Fatih Akin, a biopic about the rapper Xatar.
The competition film by the Iranian director Jafar Panahi, “No Bears”, like “Taxi” shot without permission at the time, received the special prize of the jury in Venice. Immediately before the premiere of his secretly shot film, Panahi had to serve a six-year prison sentence for “propaganda” against the regime. Before that, he had expressed his solidarity with the directors Mohammad Rasulof and Mostafa al-Ahmad, who were already in prison.
The anniversary edition of Filmfest Hamburg will open on September 29th at the Cinemaxx am Dammtor with Hans-Christian Schmid’s film “We are then probably the relatives” about the Reemtsma kidnapping and will end on October 8th with the Moroccan film “The Blue Kaftan” by Maryam Touzani, who tells a homosexual love story. A total of 116 long films from 58 production countries are on the program. As always, the Hamburg Film Festival dares a balancing act between extreme art house productions and entertainment films. About 280 performances are planned, including film festival around the corner special screenings in the district cinemas. Well-known directors and actors are expected on the red carpets of the film festival.
Guest from the Ukraine is the Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival, which is organizing its national competition with two short film programs and seven feature films in the Alabama cinema in Kampnagel.
At the Hamburg Film Festival, prize money totaling 110,000 euros will be awarded. The film festival decided not to award the Douglas Sirk Prize to the Austrian director Ulrich Seidl due to current allegations of poor working conditions on the set in Romania, as Wiederspiel said. The film festival team therefore decided not to award the prize in 2022, “since the allegations would overshadow an award ceremony”.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Filmfest Hamburg, there will be a permanent pass for everyone under the age of 31. You can watch up to three films a day for only 30 euros. Otherwise the prices are usually 9.50 euros per film. The main sponsor of the film festival is the Ministry of Culture and Media.
The complete program is available at www.filmfesthamburg.de. Ticket sales in the festival cinemas and in the Levantehaus begin on September 15 at 11 a.m., and cinema tickets can already be purchased in the Levantehaus on September 14 from 6 p.m. during the “yellow hour”.
In the run-up to the film festival, the Binnenalster Filmfest is showing the opening of the State Opera on September 17 with Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen” in the new production by Herbert Fritsch and under the musical direction of Yoel Gamzou. Maria Kataeva can be seen in the title role, as Don José Tomislav Mužek and as Escamillo Kostas Smoriginas. The opening premiere will be broadcast at 8 p.m. on a cinema screen on Jungfernstieg and at 9 p.m. on Rathausmarkt Harburg in cooperation with Filmfest Hamburg, City Management Hamburg and the “Vereinviven Jungfernstieg” as part of the Binnenalster Filmfest. The NDR is planning a broadcast on September 24 from 7 p.m. on NDR Kultur and in the video stream on www.ndr.de. Already on Thursday, September 15th, the Binnenalster Filmfest will show: “Some Like It Hot” and on September 16th “Harry and Sally”. Finally, on Sunday, September 19, Loriot’s “Pappa ante Portas” will be shown. The open-air performances start at 8:30 p.m.
