FILMFEST HAMBURG sums up positively
3. Oktober 2023
After five festival days with national and international guests, full cinema theatres, a first award ceremony and good results, FILMFEST HAMBURG sums up positively at the “Bergfest“.
“I am really overwhelmed by the great enthusiasm for movies shown by our audience,” says festival director Albert Wiederspiel. “After these first five festival days, we have already made 30 per cent more revenue than last year and are even ahead of the pre-Corona festival year 2019 with 15 per cent. This is how it can go on!”
After the opening with Amjad Al Rasheed’s film Inshallah a Boy, The Theory of Everything, The Nature of Love, La Guardia Blanca, the MICHEL entry Thabo- The Rhino Case, Die Flut – Tod am Deich, Power Alley as well as Rickerl – Musik is höchstens a Hobby, among others, celebrated their premieres in Hamburg. After the screening, leading actor and singer songwriter Vodoo Jürgens opened the FILMFEST BAR/Kasematte 20 together with the Nino from Vienna.
The screenings of Wonderland with the two founders of the Miniatur Wunderland Gerrit Braun and Frederik Braun, Anselm and Perfect Days with Wim Wenders as well as Heaven Can Wait by Sven Halfar were enthusiastically received. The choir was not only present on the red carpet, it also thrilled the cinema audience in the auditorium with three songs. It was really crowded at the premiere of Heinz Strunk’s Last Exit Schinkenstraße with Marc Hosemann, Bruno Alexander, Katharina Wackernagel as well as Oscar Belton and Emil Belton, among others.
The Douglas Sirk Award was presented to Sandra Hüller in the presence of the First Mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg Dr Peter Tschentscher, with Jens Harzer as laudator.
Until 6 October, FILMFEST UMS ECK will show selected films from the programme in the district cinemas. The Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival started on 2 October with the film Forever-Forever attended by the festival organisers and director Anna Buryachkova. The Ukrainian festival returns to Hamburg for the second time and runs until 5 October.
The Binnenalster Filmfest in mid-September, which preceded the festival, was the most successful edition since its beginning with 7,000 visitors. Since 2012, City Management Hamburg, Lebendiger Jungfernstieg e.V., the Hamburg State Opera and FILMFEST HAMBURG have been working together not only to get people in the mood for the film festival, but also to celebrate the opening of the Hamburg State Opera season.
The second half of the festival also promises more highlights and stars on the Red Carpet: Nikolaj Arcel presents his film Promised Land together with leading actor Mads Mikkelsen, leading actor Dave Turner will come to Hamburg for The Old Oak, and Aylin Tezel celebrates her world premiere at FILMFEST HAMBURG with Falling into Place.
Other guests include Emily Cox (Innocent – The Julia B Case, Invisible Assailant), Katharina Lüdin, Jenny Schily and Godehard Giese (And that one can live without deception), Michael Klier, Lena Urzendowsky and Kotti Yun (L’Etre Hmain), Laura Schroeder and Susanne Wolff (Maret), Catherine Breillat (Last Summer), Heino Ferch (Die Saat – Tödliche Macht, Briefe aus dem Jenseits) and Ayse Polat and Axel Milberg (Tatort – Borowski und das unschuldige Kind von Wacken).
Directors Radu Jude, Stephan Komanderev, Rodrigo Moreno and Marija Kavtaradze, whose films Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Romania), Blaga’s Lesson (Bulgaria), The Deliquents (Argentina) and Slow (Lithuania) are all in the running for the Oscar for Best International Film in their respective countries, are also expected to attend.
Today, 3 October, before the premiere of the film Achill, the Albert Wiederspiel Award donated by the Hapag-Llyod Foundation will be presented to Iranian director Farah Delaram.
The FILMFEST HAMBURG INDUSTRY DAYS with panels and talks started yesterday at Cinemaxx and will end on 6 October with the 4th EXPLORER CONFERENCE. MICHEL Kinder und Jugend Filmfest celebrates its closing on 5 October with the awards ceremony of the new MICHEL film award MAJA and the Dutch film Totem. The last festival edition under the direction of Albert Wiederspiel will be closed after the awards ceremony on 7 October with the film Paradise is Burning by Mika Gustafson.
FILMFEST HAMBURG will take place until 7 October 2023. Tickets are available online and in the festival cinemas Abaton, Alabama, CinemaxX Dammtor, Metropolis, Passage and Studio-Kino.
