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The Focus programmes: Rage & Horror, desired! – film lust & queer, Panorama and more Festival specials

From 16 to 21 April 2024, IFFF Dortmund+Köln presents an eclectic array of films and we look forward to welcoming numerous German and international film-makers to Cologne. Alongside the Competitions, the Festival sections with their different profiles will showcase provocative and poignant works by directors from all over the globe. This year’s Focus: Rage & Horror tracks down images and stories of female rage and feminist horror from across film history, while the queer section desired! sets out in search of queer home movies. The documentaries in Panorama present themselves as fragments with associative images, flickering memories and longitudinal documentaries. Other formats and Specials round off the Festival programme.

Focus: Rage & Horror

This year’s Focus creates space for angry female voices and visions, whether monstrous, heroic or a chaotic combination of both. Brutal, supernaturally powerful, activistic, funny, uninhibited, supportive: we delve deep into film history from 1899 to the present day to show women who express their anger with no inhibitions. Nine feature-length films, a programme of shorts, the Film All-Nighter, a self-defence workshop and a panel discussion make up the Focus programme in 2024.

Amanda Nell Eu’s feature film TIGER STRIPES is a body horror trip through the Malaysian jungle. Twelve-year-old Zaffan’s first period prompts bullying and exclusion, but in a monstrous transformation, the resolute girl quite literally extends her claws. The low-budget US horror film HELLBENDER is an entertaining example of artistic freedom that can be found in improvisation. The Adams family – Toby Poser, John Adams and Zelda Adams – are the creative force behind numerous productions that enjoy legendary status among devoted followers. Their horror coming-of-age story is pure witchcraft rock ‘n’ roll. American director Jennifer Reeder presents her acclaimed coming-of-age horror film PERPETRATOR, and is also on the jury for the International Debut Feature Film Competition. The Brazilian feature film DRY GROUND BURNING by Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós tells the tale of a gang of women who steal and illegally sell oil. Taking control of the streets, they engage in radical acts of political rebellion. In the little-known Czech feature film WOLF’S HOLE (1986), Věra Chytilová dissects the horror of oppression and manipulation in authoritarian systems with twisted humour against the backdrop of a ski trip that gets out of hand. Sodajerk’s acclaimed footage film HELLO DANKNESS uses quite different means to analyse the corrupting phenomenon of Donald Trump. The film-makers merge hundreds of pop culture clips to turn the years of his presidency into a suburban musical. Another politically provocative film is the iconic documentary BLACK PANTHERS (FR/USA 1968) by Agnès Varda, which will be screened with A PLACE OF RAGE (GB 1991) by Pratibha Parmar. The films document and analyse the (feminist) protests within the American Black Power movement. The films’ topicality is underscored not least of all by 9 TO 5, the 1980s cult comedy starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton, who play a trio of office workers who fight for a more equitable, sexism-free workplace.

The feature-length films are complemented by a selection of shorts depicting raging silent film pioneers in revenge films from the early years of cinema. The films will be shown with live musical accompaniment from Gunda Gottschalk (violin) and Mariá Portugal (drums). The Film All-Nighter entitled »The Devil Inside« is also dedicated to the Focus theme and features around 20 shorts and music videos including works by Kurdwin Ayub, Pipilotti Rist, Jennifer Reeder and others, as well as the lecture performance LET IRANIAN VAMPIRES SUCK YOUR BLOOD by Negar Tahsili. Finally, the »Pretty Deadly Self-Defense« workshop invites guests to learn how to defend themselves against zombies and slashers. Later in the Festival, directors Jennifer Reeder, Nancy Mac Granaky-Quaye and curator Sara Neidorf will examine rage and horror as feminist strategies in an open panel discussion.

Betty Schiel is responsible for the Focus programme in collaboration with Sara Neidorf (Final Girl Festival Berlin).

Kept on Tape: The desired! – film lust & queer section

Ten queer films that explore memories, create archives, look into music and solidarity; from hopeful visions to dystopian collapse. Protagonists who show solidarity and test how things can work together, whether in a factory, in prison, on the beach, in seminar rooms, clubs, on stage or in a rehearsal room.

The Greek film LESVIA by Tzeli Hadjidimitriou documents, by using a variety of images and video material, the history of Eresos on Lesbos, which has become a place where lesbians have lived their freedom and visibility since the 1970s. The British musical CHUCK CHUCK BABY (German premiere) by Janis Pugh is a stirring tragicomedy, not least thanks to the music of Minnie Riperton and Neil Diamond, and is set in a chicken factory. Straight from the Berlinale come the acclaimed films REAS and TEACHES OF PEACHES. In her documentary-fiction film REAS, theatre and film director Lola Arias (Gorki Theatre, amongst others) reconstructs the experiences of imprisoned cis and trans women. During the 2022 anniversary tour for Peaches’ legendary album TEACHES OF PEACHES, a fascinating portrait of the electro-pop-punk icon emerges. LIFE UNREHEARSED tells the story of Soohyun and In-sun, who came to Germany from South Korea as nurses and have been a couple for 30 years.

The short film programme “So, what’s the outlook like?” and the open desired! »Workshop: Home Movies« round off the queer section.  

In charge of selecting the films for desired! – film lust & queer is curator Natascha Frankenberg, supported by Leah Gerfelmeyer.

Fragmented. The Panorama films

Under the heading “Fragmented”, the section for documentary and experimental films and new formats presents eight current films, including four German and international premieres.

A family album is dissected into its individual parts and travels from France back to Palestine. In BYE BYE TIBERIAS, Lina Soualem not only portrays her mother, the famous actress Hiam Abbass, she also investigates the history of her family, which begins in Palestine. In ECHO OF YOU (German premiere) by Danish director Zara Zerny, elderly people talk about their experiences of love in sensual portraits – a hopeful look at our lives featuring many voices. The multi-award-winning film APOLONIA, APOLONIA by Lea Glob is a touching longitudinal documentary about a charismatic young woman who finds her place in the art world. The US film KING COAL (German premiere) by Elaine McMillion Sheldon is a tale about coal and an audiovisual cinema experience about how deeply the history of coal mining has carved itself in people’s lives. The screening of the South Korean film THE NIGHT OF THE FACTORY GIRLS by Geonhee Kim will be its international premiere. In a district of Seoul, fragments of Japanese colonisation are brought into the present and interwoven into the images with a touching text. The Argentinian experimental film THE FACE OF THE JELLYFISH by Melisa Liebenthal represents a playful search for one’s own identity. The film uses charming situation comedy to explore the structures of the gaze that shape our self-perception. What remains of us beyond the images that are made of us?

The multi-channel video installation THOSE WHO KEPT THE LIGHT by Nastja Säde Rönkkö will be presented for the first time in Germany. She transforms the lighthouse, hitherto associated with masculinity, and its keepers into queer-feminist spaces on the edge of a vulnerable ecosystem.

Curator Vivien Buchhorn – with the support of Bernadette Kolonko – is responsible for the Panorama programme.

Other formats & Specials

Spot on, NRW! presents the Cologne production company Weydemann Bros.

The Spot on, NRW! section is a chance to hear from figures who are generally more in the background: producers from the state North Rhine Westphalia (NRW), who have worked a lot with female directors, are introduced individually and share their experiences, successes and challenges. The Festival welcomes this year Weydemann Bros. as its guests. The two brothers Jonas and Jakob Weydemann, from Hamburg, founded their production company in Berlin in 2008, followed by another office in Cologne in 2011. The talk will shed a light on their artistic visions.

Following the discussion, we will present their production TIGER STRIPES. The Malaysian feature film is also part of this year’s festival Focus: Rage & Horror.

SHOOT KHM & IFFF DORTMUND+KÖLN AWARD FOR FEMALE ARTISTS OF THE ACADEMY OF MEDIA ARTS COLOGNE 2024 for Laura Engelhardt

The Shoot award is an honour sponsored by the KHM Academy of Media Arts Cologne for the outstanding artistic achievement by a female graduate. It is essential to raise awareness of gender inequality in the film industry among female film-makers early on during their studies and give them the right support. Young directors often describe the first years after graduating from university as a sobering awakening. However emancipated they felt in their academic environment, their professional experience demonstrates that we’ve still got a long way to go to achieve equality in the film industry. The prize is being awarded for the fourth time in 2024 and goes to Laura Engelhardt for her film MASCHA. Congratulations!

Shoot is a joint gender equality collaboration between Equality / Discrimination of the Academy of Media Arts Cologne KHM and IFFF Dortmund+Köln, and comes with prize money of €1,000.

IFFF Revisited: THE GIRLS by Mai Zetterling

Every year, the Festival invites a guest curator to delve into the Dortmund festival archives, which is one of the largest collections of German women’s films with well over 10,000 titles. This year, it is the turn of Belgian curator Marie Vermeiren. Vermeiren was one of the founders of the Brussels women’s film festival Elles Tournent in 2008, which is still organised as a collective today. She has selected the 1968 feminist film classic THE GIRLS by Swedish director Mai Zetterling.

Against the backdrop of rehearsals for »Lysistrata« by Aristophanes, three of the actresses find disturbing echoes of their own lives in their characters. »How can women take back control of their lives and at the same time make the world a better place? It's time to get the message out to an apathetic public. But is society ready for a wake-up call? It may come as no surprise that Simone de Beauvoir called Mai Zetterling's riotous feature the best film ever made by a woman.« (Marie Vermeiren)

Aller-retour et aller. Dialogue with a film – Performance by and with Karolin Meunier

The cult film Wanda by Barbara Loden (USA 1970) is the starting point for this feminist performance by Berlin artist and author Karolin Meunier. The film character, the director - who played Wanda herself - the artist and other voices blend linguistically into one another, blurring questions of identity: "A woman tells her story through that of another woman."

Meunier's performances, texts and video installations negotiate the linguistic access to experience through cultural techniques. Her artist's book on a work by Italian feminist Carla Lonzi will be published in 2024 and the performance script for Aller-retour et aller was published in 2023 in the Harun Farocki Institute's publication series.

Image immersion: Birgit Hein

The Festival presents the sensual, spatial and pictorial film experiences of one of the most important film artists of the post-war era, Birgit Hein. The artistic career of this experimental film-maker, who died in 2023, began in Cologne where she helped shape the city’s subculture as co-founder of X-SCREEN. Her artistic development from the beginnings of structural film-making back to the archetypal images of a childhood during World War II was profoundly influenced by the search for images of destruction / / destroyed images.

Special screening of women’s football: COPA 71

The Festival presents in cooperation with the German Football Museum, the German premiere of the gripping documentary film COPA 71. It is the story of the mega-successful, unofficial first Women's World Cup in Mexico in 1971. With never-before-seen footage and recent interviews, Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine tell the story of the outrageous treatment of women's football, going far beyond the sport itself.

INTO THE WILD

INTO THE WILD is a mentorship programme aimed at empowering young female film-makers at the start of their career. It brings together emerging talent with decision-makers and experienced female professionals from the industry.

We look forward to welcoming organisers, alumni and mentors of INTO THE WILD who will share their experiences and explain why the programme, which was launched in 2017, continues to be so vital for the German film industry.

Discussion event: FLINTA* for peace / Palestinians and Jews for Peace

The Festival welcomes the new Cologne-based group Palestinians and Jews for Peace to the festival. The feminist group, which was founded by friends Kristina Bublevskaya and Zeynep Karaosman shortly after 7 October, consists of Palestinian, Jewish and other solidarity and emancipatory friends who are committed to a differentiated dialogue and compassionate, respectful interaction with one another. Their aim is to emphasise that there are infinitely more than just two sides and that all people are learners. They show that the fight against fascism, racism and anti-Semitism must always be fought with oneself. In this sense, the group will introduce itself and provide an opportunity for dialogue.

Space for cinema – cinema as space: cinema culture in NRW today

What does cinema mean today? What is cinema today? Cinema is a social setting offering an aesthetic, collective experience. But what does cinema work actually involve? Keeping a balance between cinema releases and film series, event formats and weekly schedules, target group work and enhancing a cinema’s profile is the task and challenge of every cinema operation. This theme day will discuss the status quo of cultural cinema in NRW – from rural cinemas to urban arthouse. Particularly in the times we’re living in, promoting cultural work in the region is extremely important, and cinema lends itself particularly well to this. Historical, economic and funding policy structures need analysing in order to take a constructive look at the future of cinema.

›Promoting cinemas as cultural canvases‹ was the idea behind this theme day. It is part of the seven propositions put forward by  Netzwerk Filmkultur e. V., founded in 2021.