Author: fsk

A film by Valeska Grisebach. From 24 September at the fsk.

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Veska, an archaeo­lo­gist, has retur­ned to her home town of Svilengrad – in the bor­der regi­on bet­ween Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey – for an excava­ti­on pro­ject. To her sur­pri­se, she runs into Said, an old acquain­tance from the Rhodopes, who­se shady busi­ness dealings have brought him to Svilengrad. Said’s car has been sto­len, and Veska invi­tes him to spend the day with her at the excava­ti­on site. It is a hap­py day full of fami­lia­ri­ty, a day like a pro­mi­se. The next mor­ning, Said has disappeared.

Veska fol­lows Said’s trail, del­ving ever deeper into the hid­den lay­ers and rea­li­ties of the town and its peo­p­le – sto­ries from the era of gre­at uphe­aval in the 1990s, of free­dom and shat­te­red dreams, vio­lence and quick money. What does Said have to do with Iliya, the powerful man behind the sce­nes, around whom all the threads seem to con­ver­ge? Veska is forced to con­front her own memo­ries. Supported by her fri­ends from Svilengrad, she beg­ins to wri­te her own story.

Credits:

BG/FR/DE/AT 2026, 164 mins, Bulgarian with German sub­tit­les
Director: Valeska Grisebach
Cinematography: Bernhard Keller
Editing: Bettina Böhler
Starring: Yana Radeva, Syuleyman Alilov Letifov, Stoicho Kostadinov, Nikolay Shekerdjiev, Denislava Yordanova

Trailer:

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A film by Paweł Pawlikowski. From 17 September at the fsk. Preview on 26 August. In German, English, Russian with German subtitles.

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„Like my pre­vious films, VATERLAND also explo­res the turm­oil of histo­ry, exi­le and our deep-sea­ted need for a sen­se of home and belon­ging. Furthermore, the film com­bi­nes a dra­ma­tic his­to­ri­cal moment
with a very spe­cial per­so­nal sto­ry. Yet whilst the cha­rac­ters in IDA and COLD WAR were fic­tion­al, VATERLAND cen­tres on the his­to­ri­cal figu­res of Thomas Mann and his head­strong eldest child­ren, Erika and Klaus, who are ent­an­gled in a com­plex fami­ly love tri­ang­le.
In order to inter­wea­ve the per­so­nal and the his­to­ri­cal in a moving and mutual­ly enri­ching way, we have taken cer­tain liber­ties with regard to the his­to­ri­cal facts and their chro­no­lo­gy. In doing so, we have endea­vou­red to remain true to the emo­tio­nal and intellec­tu­al truth of the sto­ry.
Mann’s return to Germany in 1949 and his attempt to over­co­me the divi­si­on and gro­wing ideo­lo­gi­cal pola­ri­sa­ti­on of his coun­try bear obvious par­al­lels to the pre­sent day. The old para­digm is dead, the old rules no lon­ger app­ly, and in their place two cru­de, mutual­ly exclu­si­ve nar­ra­ti­ves are emer­ging. Narratives that gene­ra­li­se ever­y­thing, that suck the oxy­gen out of the air, that cor­ner you and force you to take sides, and that gra­du­al­ly make it impos­si­ble to see cle­ar­ly and speak free­ly. For Mann, the only defence against this ideo­lo­gi­cal reduc­tion was art – the ‘poe­tic gaze’ he men­ti­ons in one of his spee­ches, the open eye for the com­ple­xi­ty and para­do­xes of life.
VATERLAND brings tog­e­ther many ele­ments, tel­ling its sto­ry through a simp­le yet con­den­sed cine­ma­tic lan­guage; it unfolds in haun­ting images and striking sce­nes, lea­ving the audi­ence space to feel and reflect.” (Pawel Pawlokowski)

Credits:

PL/DE/IT/FR 2026, 82 mins. German, English, Russian (ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German sub­tit­les)
Director: Paweł Pawlikowski
Cinematography: Łukasz Żal
Editing: Piotr Wójcik, Paweł Pawlikowski
Starring: Hanns Zischler, Sandra Hüller, August Diehl, Devid Striesow, Joachim Meyerhoff, Fritzi Haberlandt, Milan Peschel

Trailer:

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A film by Brezel Göring. Showing at the fsk from 27 August. In German.

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The film tells the sto­ry of Charlotte, Helena and Oskar – who meet up again after a long time and, at Charlotte’s invi­ta­ti­on, go on holi­day tog­e­ther. She’s made her for­tu­ne and has enjoy­ed a suc­cessful care­er as an actress, whilst the other two are still making under­ground art (and are com­ple­te­ly pen­ni­less). The three used to be part of the expe­ri­men­tal film group ‘Les enfants ter­ri­bles’, but had fal­len out irrepa­ra­b­ly. And now envy and jea­lou­sy fla­re up once more, and even inten­si­fy when Rudolph enters their lives. All three fall in love with him and have affairs with him one after the other! They deci­de – just like in the old days – to make an under­ground film. Demenzia, a man-kil­ling seri­al kil­ler play­ed by Helena, relent­less­ly kills men, all of whom are play­ed by Rudolph. During the final shoot, Rudolph dies in an acci­dent. The three dis­po­se of the body, and through this cri­mi­nal acti­vi­ty, their old fri­end­ship and love for one ano­ther are rekindled.

The film Forever 16 is based on a novel by Françoise Cactus. She ima­gi­ned what it would be like to be old and to see her old mates again: in other words, sci­ence fic­tion with a focus on indi­vi­du­al psy­cho­lo­gy. They pick up whe­re they
left off: 1. they’re making a film and 2. they’re bicke­ring!
Alongside the rival­ries and squab­bles, fun­da­men­tal ques­ti­ons also ari­se: how do sub­ver­si­on, black humour, anti-mora­li­ty, gen­der iden­ti­ties, femi­nism and youthful fun­da­men­tal oppo­si­ti­on age? And how can we pre­vent sub­ver­si­on from beco­ming part of the main­stream and the cul­tu­re of com­mer­cial explo­ita­ti­on?
The three main cha­rac­ters repre­sent dif­fe­rent forms of fail­ure: Charlotte com­mer­cia­li­ses hers­elf, Helena beco­mes embit­te­red by her lack of suc­cess, and Oskar resigns hims­elf to giving up art.

Credits:

DE 2026 74 mins,
Directed by Brezel Göring
Cinematography: Stephan Holl
Starring: Lilith Stangenberg, Chang Wang, Mücke, Twiggy, Anton Garber

Trailer:

kommt noch.

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A film by Roderick Warich. Showing at the fsk from 13 August. Original Thai ver­si­on with German subtitles

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Jen lives in Bangkok – bet­ween the recep­ti­on of an apart­ment block and the hotel rooms of stran­ge men. What she sells is time, inti­ma­cy, some­ti­mes just a moment. When a mee­ting gets out of hand, Wason steps in – a bar­man who has lost more than he lets on. For a short while, they drift through the sul­try nights tog­e­ther.
Then Jen is gone. No trace. No good­bye.
Pim, her flat­ma­te, beg­ins to search for her. Wason fol­lows her. Her trail leads through emp­ty alley­ways, unfa­mi­li­ar rooms, out­stan­ding debts and memo­ries that slip away. All the way to the Cambodian bor­der – or per­haps just back to whe­re Jen had long sin­ce vanis­hed.
When Jen vanis­hes – wit­hout a word, wit­hout say­ing good­bye – her flat­ma­te Pim and the quiet bar­man Wason fol­low her trail. A quiet search beg­ins, through nights, memo­ries – and a city that mis­ses no one.

“If you show a gun in the first act, it must be fired in the third act” – a dra­ma­tic rule by Anton Chekhov, which is about nar­ra­ti­ve eco­no­my, avo­i­ding loo­se ends and buil­ding ten­si­on. In his film Funeral Casino Blues, Roderick Warich shows the gun almost right at the start: Wason (Wason Dokkathum) has it tucked into his wais­t­band; he lifts his shirt to free Jen (Jutamat Lamoon) from an intru­si­ve admi­rer (read: cli­ent). The gun will reap­pear time and again. It is also fired. But this hap­pens off-screen, after fade-to-black sequen­ces, and not neces­s­a­ri­ly in the third act eit­her, becau­se Warich is far remo­ved from any­thing resembling a clear divi­si­on into acts, or inde­ed any struc­tu­red, stan­dar­di­sed nar­ra­ti­ve style.
And that is what makes his film so utter­ly fasci­na­ting, so abso­lut­e­ly worth wat­ching. You just have to let yours­elf be drawn in, and then you can lose yours­elf in hyp­no­tic images in which the came­ra moves through the room, through Bangkok by night; then you can lose yours­elf in the cha­rac­ters, who­se inner­most thoughts we can at best only glim­pse; then you can immer­se yours­elf in a sto­ry that shifts from a love sto­ry to a noir gangs­ter tale, which beco­mes a ghost film wit­hout being a hor­ror film.„
Kinozeit | Harald Mühlbeyer

Credits:

DE 2025, 153 mins · Original Thai ver­si­on with German sub­tit­les
Director: Roderick Warich
Cinematography: Roland Stuprich
Editing: Hannes Bruun
Starring: Jutamat Lamoon · Wason Dokkathum · Jutarat Burinok · Piyapong Saebui · Rinda Hamer · Chayanee Choomnoommanee

Trailer:

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A film by Saša Vajda. Showing at the fsk from 20 August. In German with English subtitles,

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Sixteen-year-old Ilay aim­less­ly drifts through the out­skirts of Berlin. His mother, Maria, lies on her death­bed, cared for by Ana, a Mexican pal­lia­ti­ve nur­se. Refusing to accept his mother’s impen­ding death, Ilay retre­ats fur­ther into hims­elf, incre­asing­ly shut­ting hims­elf off from rea­li­ty. Through slow, con­tem­pla­ti­ve images, the film fol­lows Ilay and Ana in their dai­ly rou­ti­nes, from Ana’s quiet dedi­ca­ti­on to Maria’s care to her strug­gles with her own addic­tion. Ilay works in a logi­stics cent­re, does com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice and spends his after­noons han­ging out with his fri­ends at a lake. At night, he is rest­less, wan­de­ring the city in a slee­p­less daze like a ghost. During one of his noc­turnal outings, he impul­si­ve­ly ste­als a dog, promp­ting Ana to take him to a psy­cho­lo­gist. There, Ilay reve­als his deep-sea­ted belief in the impos­si­bi­li­ty of death. As his mother’s pas­sing approa­ches, it beco­mes less an ine­vi­ta­bi­li­ty and more a mat­ter of mys­tery and speculation.

Credits:

DE 2026, 87 mins, German with English sub­tit­les,
Director: Saša Vajda
Cinematography: Tom Otte
Editing: Denys Darahan, Saša Vajda
Starring: Mohammed Yassin Ben Majdouba, Flor Prieto Catemaxca, Mahira Hakberdieva, Safet Bajraj, Shanthi Philipp, Solomon Guye, Mahir Özel

Trailer:

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A film by Faraz Shariat. Starts August 27th at the fsk. In German & Korean with German subtitles,

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With all the resour­ces and aut­ho­ri­ty of the sta­te behind her, young pro­se­cu­tor Seyo Kim is deter­mi­ned to con­front far-right vio­lence in eas­tern Germany. But when she, hers­elf, beco­mes a tar­get – sur­vi­ving a racist attack on her life – Seyo deci­des to inves­ti­ga­te on her own, defy­ing expli­cit orders from her supe­ri­ors and put­ting her life fur­ther at risk. Seyo final­ly suc­ceeds in brin­ging one of the atta­ckers to tri­al and fights to expo­se him as part of a wider right-wing net­work. She digs deep into her office’s archi­ves, reopens long-clo­sed “iso­la­ted cases” and mano­eu­vres see­mingly harm­less wit­nesses into reve­al­ing their ties – not only to the net­work but also to the attack on her own life. Germany’s public pro­se­cu­ti­on ser­vice is the most objec­ti­ve insti­tu­ti­on in the world – or so the myth goes. But throug­hout the tri­al, Seyo lear­ns first­hand what it means to ent­rust the pur­su­it of jus­ti­ce to a sta­te that appli­es dou­ble stan­dards and not only down­plays far-right vio­lence, but at times even pro­tects it.

Credits:

DE 2026 113 mins, German, Korean with German sub­tit­les,
Director: Faraz Shariat
Cinematography: Lotta Kilian
Editing: Friederike Hohmuth
Starring: Chen Emilie Yan, Julia Jentsch, Alev Irmak, Arnd Klawitter, Sebastian Urzendowsky

Trailer:

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