The Festival of German Films will be held for the 12th time in Madrid from June 1 to 5, 2010. A total of seven new feature films, two documentaries, a TV film and numerous shorts will be presented in the festival cinema „Cine Palafox“. In addition, the program will be rounded off with a retrospective of the filmmaker Joseph Vilsmaier and the screening of the Director’s Cut of Volker Schloendorff’s THE TIN DRUM (DIE BLECHTROMMEL).

The festival will be opened in style on the evening of June 1, 2010 with NANGA PARBAT in the presence of the director Joseph Vilsmaier and Reinhold Messner in the Cine Palafox. NANGA PARBAT is a film portrait of the first ascent of the Rupal Wall on Nanga Parbat in 1970 by brothers Reinhold and Guenther Messner.

The new German feature films BERLIN ‘36 by Kaspar Heidelbach, THE DAY WILL COME (ES KOMMT DER TAG) by Susanne Schneider, FRIENDSHIP! by Markus Goller, MY WORDS, MY LIES – MY LOVE (LILA LILA) by Alain Gsponer, RUN IF YOU CAN (RENN, WENN DU KANNST) by Dietrich Brueggemann and CEASEFIRE (WAFFENSTILLSTAND ) by Lancelot von Naso will be shown as part of the festival. Some of the directors and producers will be travelling to Madrid to present their films in person to the Spanish audience.

The festival program also includes the TV film DER VERLORENE SOHN by Nina Grosse and two documentaries from the world of dance, which show two different stagings of Pina Bausch’s piece „Kontakthof“: DAMEN UND HERREN AB 65 by Lilo Mangelsdorff and DANCING DREAMS (TANZTRAEUME) by Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann.
The youth films THE CROCODILES and THE CROCODILES 2 (VORSTADTKROKODILE and VORSTADTKROKODILE 2) by Christian Ditter are intended to appeal to the younger audience.

German Films’ short film program NEXT GENERATION 2010 with contributions by film students, will be shown again this year in the main program with support from Kodak. Director Xenia Lesniewski will introduce EGODYSTON as a representative of 2010’s lineup of the short filmmakers,. In addition, a program of shorts without any dialogue will be shown for children aged four and above during the festival. The following shorts will be presented in the main section as supporting programs: GERMANIA WURST by Volker Schlecht, TERMINAL by Joerg Wagner, BETTY B. & THE THE’S by Felix Stienz and EGO SUM ALPHA ET OMEGA by Jan-Peter Meier.

The retrospective of the filmmaker Joseph Vilsmaier includes four titles AUTUMN MILK (HERBSTMILCH), THE LAST TRAIN (DER LETZTE ZUG), COMEDIAN HARMONISTS and STALINGRAD.

The festival’s closing film will be the Director’s Cut of THE TIN DRUM (DIE BLECHTROMMEL) by Volker Schloendorff, which was recently presented in Cannes.

The event’s partners are: Lufthansa, Fundación Goethe, the German Embassy in Madrid, the Goethe-Institut in Madrid, Kodak, Radeberger, AG Kurzfilm, AG Dok und Tapanco. The prizes in kind for the Audience Award were donated by Kodak and Avalon Productions.