17.-26. November
KinoFest 2023

Irma falls head over heels in love with the captivatingly charismatic Sisi and her modern ideas. Together, they travel wherever their whims take them. And everything could go on forever like this, if only Sisi weren't Empress. The world reaches for her, attempting to break her.

A documentary about refugees that addresses neither their journey to the country of refuge nor their integration. Instead, directors Arne Büttner and Ole Jacobs have made a film about stagnation: Nasim and her family are stranded on the island of Lesbos, at Moria refugee camp, which was still open in 2020.

Based on the bestselling book of the same name by comedian Felix Lobrecht, director David Wnendt tells a story with great sympathy for the coming-of-age protagonists. It's a tale of friendship and solidarity within the microcosm of Gropiusstadt in Berlin-Neukölln in 2003.

Irma verliebt sich Hals über Kopf in die mitreissend charismatische Sisi und ihre modernen Ideen. Gemeinsam reisen sie, wohin sie die Laune trägt. Und alles könnte ewig so weiter gehen, wäre Sisi nicht Kaiserin. Die Welt greift nach ihr, um sie zu brechen.

Anna is a security officer, living with her daughter Iris in a luxurious high-rise on the edge of the forest. Living here, shielded from the threatening environment, is the goal of many people. However, when the caretaker's dog disappears, fear creeps into the building beneath the threshold.

A cinematic mosaic of episodes and fragments, sketches and narratives, emotions, and information – ingeniously blended into an almost epic documentary narrative about the civil war in Syria, which has now lasted for far more than a decade.
 

After being in prison, Batu is looking forward to a new beginning with buddy Dennis. But of all things, his welcome party where all the boys from the block are gathered ends in a police operation. 
Batu has his hands cuffed again and is confronted with dramatic news. 
 

Sophie Linnenbaum portrays a hierarchically structured three-class society slowly moving towards a revolt in this science fiction film. The story is told through a 16-year-old student who, from her privileged milieu, finds herself in the slums and surprisingly makes friends there.
 

His mother blames communism, his uncle holds an inheritance dispute responsible, and the rest fall into silence: Dieu Hao Do explores the fragmentation of his family, which, like 1.5 million other Vietnamese, had to leave their homeland in 1975 and has not spoken to each other since.

In the summer of 2014, sunflower fields and coal mines in eastern Ukraine transform into a 12-square-kilometer crime scene. A multifaceted examination of the downing of the Malaysian passenger flight MH17, where a butterfly-shaped fragment was found in the pilot's body.

A Congolese man and a German woman fall in love and enter into a relationship, knowing full well that it is not going to be easy. Indeed, the man has more criminal energy than the woman would like, but she would rather be his saviour than his ally.

Over 60 years after the first arrival of Turkish workers in Germany, director Cem Kaya lets early immigrants tell their stories. Concurrently, he showcases the diversity of German xenophobia through archival TV footage from that era.

22-year-old Elaha obsessively tries to regain a perceived innocence she lost through sex. A plastic surgeon is supposed to restore her so-called virginity, but she can't afford the expensive procedure. 
 

For her mother's 60th birthday, Clara, a philosophy doctoral student from Berlin, travels to the Mecklenburg province. The self-determined urban existence meets familial roots.