On this occasion, a revision of historical events runs through this year’s programme. The invited filmmakers work with archive material, recover estates and allow contemporary witnesses to have their say. They call for remembrance and reconsideration, asking questions about our present from the perspective of the past. A present that seems to be increasingly characterised by mutually exclusive positions, whose polarising discourses cannot do justice to the complexity and contradictions of our world. But it’s not just a look at history that characterises this edition’s programme, we also look at the present and the future with the filmmakers. At the everyday and the extraordinary, at workplaces and in virtual worlds. Under the label dokland hamburg, we are showing films by both young and established Hamburg filmmakers, and Klaus Wildenhahn’s audio play can be experienced in the fux Lichtspiele.

We are cooperating with the Harun Farocki Institute to bring two films into dialogue and are continuing the discussion format that began in 2021 with the ‘Panel on Colonial Reappraisal in Documentary Film’ with a discussion on documented activism and activist films. Karin Berger’s sensitive portraits of contemporary witnesses tie in with last year’s special on Sinti*zze and Rom*nja in film. Together with the Week of Remembrance, we commemorate the Hamburg peace activist Fasia Jansen and, based on two archive films on the Spanish Civil War, we attempt to draw conclusions for the fight against European fascism in a panel discussion.

We start the days at the festival centre in the fux eG in Altona with discussion events. You can also visit our exhibition and programme there: Together with Deutschlandfunk Kultur, we will be presenting radio features from the archive under the title ‘Documentary Listening’. After a joint lunch break, we’ll go to the cinema: Metropolis, 3001, Lichtmeß or B-Movie, as we only play one cinema a day.
We look forward to seeing you there!