06/10/2025 - The 30th Paris German Film Festival will unspool between 8 and 12 October, with professionals expected to attend the French-German Film Meetings on 8 and 9 October

Tomorrow night, Mascha Schilinski’s Cannes Jury Prize winner, Sound of Falling [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mascha Schilinski
film profile] (set to be distributed in France on 7 January by Diaphana) will open the 30th Paris German Film Festival – unspooling between 8 and 12 October in Paris’ Arlequin cinema – in the presence of its director. Organised by German Films in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut and with support from Arte and the OFAJ, the event will showcase a selection of the best of recent German film production.

Stealing focus among the 11 feature films gracing the Panorama line-up are Amrum [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Fatih Akin (unveiled in the Cannes Première section and scheduled for release in France on 24 December by Dulac Distribution) and four films discovered in this year’s Berlinale: Julia Lemke and Anna Koch’s documentary Circusboy [+see also:
film review
interview: Julia Lemke, Anna Koch
film profile] (awarded a Special Mention in the Generation Kplus section and presented in a Young Audience séance) and three fiction films which dazzled in Berlin’s Panorama line-up, namely The Good Sister [+see also:
film review
interview: Sarah Miro Fischer & Marie …
film profile] by Sarah Miro Fischer (also screened in San Sebastián’s Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section) and the documentaries The Moelln Letters [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martina Priessner
film profile] by Martina Priessner (the winner of the Audience Award in Berlin) and I Want It All. Hildegard Knef [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Luzia Schmid.

Likewise set for the showcase are Vena [+see also:
interview: Chiara Fleischhacker
film profile] by Chiara Fleischhacker (notably triumphant in Turin and Hambourg), Impatience of the Heart [+see also:
interview: Lauro Cress
film profile] by Lauro Cress (victorious at this year’s Max Ophuls Prize), Rain Fell on the Nothing New [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Steffen Goldkamp (unveiled in Karlovy Vary’s Proxima competition and due to close the Parisian gathering), Smell of Burnt Milk [+see also:
film review
interview: Justine Bauer
film profile] by Justine Bauer (awarded the Jury Prize in Mons’ International Love Film Festival), Clouds Are Made of Rain by Benjamin Kramme, and Felix Golenko’s documentary Yumi – The Whole World (telling the story of law students from the South Pacific who take their battle against climate change to the most supreme court in the world by way of a historic UN resolution).

In celebration of its 30th anniversary, the Germany Film Festival will also screen Oh Boy [+see also:
trailer
interview: Jan Ole Gerster
film profile] by Jan-Ole Gerster (2013), while this year’s Focus will be dedicated to Goethe, foregrounding Sad Jokes [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fabian Stumm
film profile] and Bones and Names [+see also:
film review
film profile], directed by and starring Fabian Stumm (who’ll deliver a masterclass on 10 October).

The festival line-up isn’t lacking in short films either, with 11 due for presentation in Special Screenings, including some of the best films to come out of German film schools of late (Next Generation) and the best short films lasting seven minutes or less (Short Tiger Award).

German and French film industry professionals will likewise be flocking to Paris this week for The French-German Film Meetings (organised by German Films and Unifrance in league with the French-German Film Academy), which are taking place at the Goethe-Institut on 8 and 9 October with a number of debates jostling on the agenda (the programme can be found here).

(Translated from French)