Event series
Annual Festival
Film|NEU Festival
Film Screenings and Symposium
Join us annually for the Film|NEU festival, Washington’s annual festival of contemporary cinema from Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. Presenting new German-language films in German with English subtitles. The FILM|NEU Festival program for 2025 will be announced soon.
Film|Neu is brought to you by the Goethe-Institut, the Austrian Cultural Forum Washington, and the Embassy of Switzerland in the United States, with generous support from DC Shorts International Film Festival, German Films, and the German Film Office.
First known as Recent German Films, then as New Films from Germany, FN made its way through indie and arthouse cinemas in the city – namely Visions Cinema in Dupont/Adams Morgan, the Key Theatre in Georgetown, and E Street Cinema in the Penn Quarter. When the Goethe-Institut Washington moved to its Chinatown location, screenings and receptions also took place in the Goethe-Institut’s own in-house theater.
By 2004, the showcase broadened to New Films from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, becoming a partnership between the Goethe-Institut, the Austrian Cultural Forum Washington, and the Embassy of Switzerland. Thanks to publications like The Washington Post, Washingtonian, and Washington City Paper, FN was featured as an Arts & Culture selection each year, securing its place as a highlight of annual film programming in DC's yearly cultural calendar. After the closing of Visions Cinema in 2004, the film festival fully moved to E Street. By 2008, the showcase – then in its 16th year – had rebranded as Film|Neu.
Film|Neu is brought to you by the Goethe-Institut, the Austrian Cultural Forum Washington, and the Embassy of Switzerland in the United States, with generous support from DC Shorts International Film Festival, German Films, and the German Film Office.
Über Film|NEU
In 1992, the Goethe-Institut Washington and its small staff occupied a space on the top floor of the German Historical Institute in Dupont Circle. At that time, the Goethe House in New York City co-presented an annual showcase of German-language films, curated by the Museum of Modern Art. This film selection was passed from Goethe-Institut colleagues in NYC to those in DC. Here, Sylvia Blume, then Cultural Programs Curator at the Goethe-Institut Washington, selected a handful of those films to screen locally at the Kennedy Center and AFI Silver – and FN started taking its early shape. One of the first films to ever screen at FN was the 1991 comedy Go Trabi Go, a crowd-pleaser about an East German family taking a road trip through a post-Wall Germany.First known as Recent German Films, then as New Films from Germany, FN made its way through indie and arthouse cinemas in the city – namely Visions Cinema in Dupont/Adams Morgan, the Key Theatre in Georgetown, and E Street Cinema in the Penn Quarter. When the Goethe-Institut Washington moved to its Chinatown location, screenings and receptions also took place in the Goethe-Institut’s own in-house theater.
By 2004, the showcase broadened to New Films from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, becoming a partnership between the Goethe-Institut, the Austrian Cultural Forum Washington, and the Embassy of Switzerland. Thanks to publications like The Washington Post, Washingtonian, and Washington City Paper, FN was featured as an Arts & Culture selection each year, securing its place as a highlight of annual film programming in DC's yearly cultural calendar. After the closing of Visions Cinema in 2004, the film festival fully moved to E Street. By 2008, the showcase – then in its 16th year – had rebranded as Film|Neu.
