Malika Rabahallah to become head of Filmfest Hamburg
9. Mai 2023
Producer and long-time head of the funding department of MOIN Filmförderung Malika Rabahallah will take over as director of FILMFEST HAMBURG from 1 January 2024, succeeding Albert Wiederspiel, who will leave the festival at the end of 2023 after 21 successful festival editions.
Albert Wiederspiel, director of FILMFEST HAMBURG: “I am very glad about the decision of the selection committee. Malika Rabahallah is an inspiring personality with excellent contacts all over the world. Her energy is catching and I am sure that she will continue to develop FILMFEST HAMBURG with fresh ideas for the Hamburg audience and the film industry. The fact that the new director of FILMFEST HAMBURG will continue to have a migration background is a great credit to the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. After 20 years of Jewish humour, it’s finally time for a different colour, which I, as a first, am already very much looking forward to.”
Malika Rabahallah, designated director of FILMFEST HAMBURG: “I am very delighted to continue the highly acclaimed FILMFEST HAMBURG as its new director from 2024 on and to take over the baton from Albert Wiederspiel. He has shaped the festival like no other with great passion and a motivated team. It is a great honour for me to follow into his footsteps and to be able to further evolve this festival with my own ideas. I would like to address all Hamburg audience with inspiring films from all over the world and unforgettable encounters. FILMFEST HAMBURG should be a meeting point for the industry and an audience festival with international appeal that celebrates the diversity and creativity of the local, national and international film industry. Above all, I also see the festival as a place for cultural and social exchange. Personally, the topics of diversity and sustainability are very close to my heart. I also want the festival to reflect on new challenges such as disruptive technological changes.”
Malika Rabahallah was born in France in 1970. She studied business administration at the Ecole Nationale de Commerce in Paris and foreign languages at the Université Nanterre, also in Paris. This was followed by further training in film production and distribution at the Ludwigsburg Film Academy and the FEMIS Paris Film School (Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris) as well as at EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs). She started her career in the film industry as a project manager for the international film and television festival Cologne Conference in the areas of programme research and international cooperations. She then switched to film production. After more than ten years as a producer, co-writer and co-director at zero one film, among others, she began working as a funding consultant at MOIN Filmförderung in 2011. She has been head of the funding department there since 2015 and has played a key role in developing Hamburg as a film location in recent years.
The supervisory board of MOIN Filmförderung as the holding company of FILMFEST HAMBURG followed with its decision the recommendations of a selection committee chaired by Dr. Carsten Brosda, Senator for Culture and Media of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
FILMFEST HAMBURG will take place this year from September 28 to October 7, 2023. 110 films from all over the world will be shown as World, European, German or Hamburg premieres. Festival cinemas are the Abaton, CinemaxX Dammtor, Metropolis, Passage and the Studio-Kino.
