German Films at North American Festivals

While the world’s attention turns to the Berlinale each February for the year’s most anticipated new German films, audiences in the US and Canada don’t need to wait to see their share of exciting German cinema. From major industry events like Sundance to insider favorites like Palm Springs, festivals across the region showcase works of all genres from established to emerging talents alike.

Read more about each festival below and check back for more as further festivals announce their lineups!

Palm Springs International Film Festival
January 2–12, 2026
Germany takes the spotlight in this year’s “Country Focus” section at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, with favorites like Sound of Falling and Miroirs No. 3 joining Albert Oehlen’s Udo Kier-led self-portrait Bad Painter, Michael Kofler’s 1960s family drama of political insurgency A Land Within, and Jan-Ole Gerster’s sun-washed Hitchcockian thriller Islands in the ten-film selection. The festival also hosts a special repertory screening of Konrad Wolf’s Stars in celebration of the East German director’s centennial.

Sundance Film Festival
January 22–February 1, 2026
This edition of the US’s most influential film festival includes Shame and Money by Germany-based Kosovar director Visar Morina (Exile) which follows a family forced to leave their village to eke out a life in the hyper-capitalist city, where instability pushes them to the limits of their dignity. Padraic McKinley’s directorial debut The Weight sees Ethan Hawke as a convict at a Depression-era Oregon work camp seeking to reunite with his daughter. The film, a major German production, was shot in the Bavarian forest.

At the festival’s awards ceremony on January 30, Shame and Money was presented with the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic! The jury noted Morina’s “powerful and unique portrayal of human dignity in contemporary Kosovo” and his “deep empathy for his characters in a crucial moment in which they are beginning again.”

Slamdance Film Festival
February 19–25, 2026
World premiering in the documentary competition at Los Angeles’ independent film festival is Philip Schaeffer’s House 4, which traces a year in the lives of the inmates and staff at a Berlin youth prison.

New York International Children’s Film Festival
February 28–March 15, 2026
Kids and adults alike can catch Seemab Gul’s Ghost School, which follows 10-year-old Pakistani girl Rabia as she investigates her school’s closing. With her neighbors offering explanations ranging from the evasive to the supernatural—perhaps the school is being haunted by a jinn!—Rabia sets off on her own courageous journey to find the truth.

Cinequest
March 10–22, 2026
Screening at this Silicon Valley festival, Alison Kuhn’s Holy Meat sees a recently canceled theater director, a young butcher, and a mysterious Danish priest leading a chaotic, blasphemous Passion play—their village’s first—in a clumsy attempt to save their local parish. Holy Meat was presented with the festival’s Best Comedy Film Award!

South by Southwest
March 12–18, 2026
SXSW, the annual celebration of media and performance in Austin, TX, presents Stella Marie Markert’s darkly comic Thanks for Nothing starring Lea Drinda (Sound of Falling) and Jan Bülow (The Universal Theory) as part of a group of teenagers living in an anarchic group home of their own design and struggling against abandonment, disillusionment, and absurdity.

Berlin & Beyond Film Festival
March 19–23, 2026
Hosted annually by Goethe-Institut San Francisco, the Berlin & Beyond Film Festival brings the best of the previous year’s new German cinema to the Bay Area. Alongside favorites like festival opener KÖLN 75, Miroirs No. 3, Amrum, and A Land Within, audiences can catch Burhan Qurbani’s gang-war Shakespeare adaptation No Beast. So Fierce. and Mia Maariel Meyer’s Youth 4 German Cinema winner 22 Lengths. Mala Emde (KÖLN 75) will receive the Spotlight Award in Acting.

New Directors/New Films
April 8–19, 2026
Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art’s showcase of innovative world cinema by new filmmakers features three German productions: Kai Stänicke’s Berlinale Teddy Award-winning period allegory Trial of Hein, Viv Li’s Berlin-to-Beijing auto-documentary Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest, and Emma Hütt and Tina Muffler’s short film on queer desire and personal freedom at the gas station Unleaded 95.

Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival
April 8–19, 2026
At this anticipated Midwestern festival, German film fans can catch many of the year’s buzziest festival favorites and new releases, including Silent Friend, A Land Within, Two Prosecutors, Late Shift, and The Last Spy.

Wisconsin Film Festival
April 9–16, 2026
In Nastia Korkia’s lush and patient German-produced debut Short Summer, independent eight-year-old Katya spends the sleepy dog days of summer at her grandparents’ house in the Russian countryside. Beyond the endless, dreamlike hours taking naps and picking mushrooms, the Second Chechen War rages, bringing national events into the daily rhythms of family life.

Cleveland International Film Festival
April 9–18, 2026
2026 Face to Face with German Films ambassador Joscha Bongard’s satirical feature debut Babystar follows sixteen-year-old influencer Luca, whose lifetime in the limelight funds her parents’ expensive tastes and ever-expanding social media ventures. When her parents decide to have another child, Luca’s carefully constructed world of appearances begins to falter.

TIFF Next Wave
April 16–19, 2026
This offshoot of the illustrious September festival, curated by a committee of students aged 15 to 18, will host the Canadian premiere of Thanks for Nothing with director Stella Marie Markert in attendance for an introduction and Q&A.

Seattle International Film Festival
May 7–17, 2026
An exciting selection of German films hits the Pacific Northwest, including Cotton Queen, Suzannah Mirghani’s determined story of political resistance and coming-of-age in a cotton-farming village in Sudan. Audiences can also catch Amrum, Silent Friend, and Trial of Hein.