Phantoms of July | Sehnsucht in Sangerhausen

FREE ADMISSION | TICKETS AVAILABLE STARTING MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21st @ 10.00 AM Admission is free with above RSVP link | Capacity is limited | Light refreshments provided

RSVP holders will be admitted on a first-come, first-served basis.


PHANTOMS OF JULY | SEHNSUCHT IN SANGERHAUSEN
Germany (2025) 90 min. Digital, German, Persian, Korean with English Subtitles
Writer-Director Julian Radlmaier
Cinematography Faraz Fesharaki, Moritz Friese (Zusatz)
Editing Julian Radlmaier
Cast Clara Schwinning, Maral Keshavarz, Paula Schindler, Henriette Confurius, Ghazal Shojaei, Kyung-Taek Lie, Buksori Lie, Jérémie Galiana, Marlene Hauser, Luise von Stein
Producers Daria Wichmann, Kirill Krasovskiy
Production Company Blue Monticola Film GmbH (Magdeburg)


In the sleepy East German village of Sangerhausen, Ursula (Schwinning), a waitress with a broken heart, and Neda (Keshvaraz), an Iranian Travel VLogger with a broken arm, both feel trapped and lonely in their precarious lives. When Ursula meets a mysterious musician from Berlin (Confurious), it seems like she may have found the spark she has been missing. Neda, convinced that she’s caught a glimpse of an old friend from Tehran, searches through the city, ultimately meeting Song-Nam (Kyung-Taek), a Korean tour guide who promises to show her sights not found in travel guides.  As the winding paths of chance draw the two women together, they set out on an unexpected ghost hunt in the mountains. Cinematographer Faraz Fesharaki’s visuals, captured in Super-16mm, add an almost dream-like quality to Radlmaier’s fifth feature, which is as much a romantic adventure film about an unlikely friendship as it is a subtle rebuttal to a contemporary right-leaning political climate, choosing instead to find kinship between outsiders, immigrants, and laborers.

 
AWARDS 
Online Film Critics Society Awards 2026 OFCS Award
Hainan Island Film Festival 2025 Golden Coconut
Filmfest Hamburg 2025 Hamburg Producer’s Award



  Juilan Radlmaier was born in Nürnberg, Germany in 1984 into a French-German-Swiss family.
He studied Directing at dffb Berlin and film theory and art history at Freie Universität Berlin and Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris.  His films, EIN GESPENST GEHT UM EUROPA (2013), EIN PROLETARISCHES WINTERMÄRCHEN (2014), SELBSTKRITIK EINES BÜRGELICHEN HUNDES (2017), and BLUTSAUGER (2021) have gained critical acclaim at festivals like Berlinale, Rotterdam, Viennale, Busan, São Paulo, AFI Fest, FICUNAM, BAFICI, and Melbourne. His latest film SEHNSUCHT IN SANGERHAUSEN (Phantoms of July) premiered in 2025 in competition at the Locarno Film Festival.


WORLD SALES
BENDITA FILM SALES
www.btafilms.com



The GERMAN CURRENTS Film Festival 2026 is a co-production of the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles and the American Cinematheque with the support of The Friends of Goethe, ELMA (European Languages and Movies in America), Condor, the Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco, the Austrian Consulate General in Los Angeles, the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles, Paulaner USA, Paulaner Sunset, Tupetz Wine Connection, KRUU.COM, and in cooperation with the German Consulate General in Los Angeles, the Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e.V., the  German Film Office, the Wende Museum, and DEFA Film Library as well as our media partners Deutsche Welle, KPFK Radio, Campus Circle, and our educational outreach partners ELMA and Creating Creators.