ALFILM - Arab Film Festival Berlin

In the page's words:

Presented by Rausgegangen

Taking place between the 23rd - 30th of April 2025, the 16th edition of ALFILM - Arab Film Festival Berlin features a wide selection of feature films, documentaries, and short films.

ALFILM will open with To a Land Unknown by Mahdi Fleifel. The film, which premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival, is currently in cinemas in the United Kingdom and was awarded a prize at the Munich International Film Festival. It will be celebrating its Berlin premiere at ALFILM. To a Land Unknown takes its audience to Athens, where cousins Chatila and Reda struggle with a fate similar to that of hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians worldwide - life as refugees. Stuck at Europe's borders, they dream of reaching Germany and starting a new, dignified life there. The opening of ALFILM, along with further film screenings, will take place this year for the first time at HAU Hebbel am Ufer.

As in previous years, the festival promises its audience, in its two program sections, a cinematic experience of artistic merit and relevance to timely issues. The ALFILM Selection highlights the richness of the contemporary Arab cinema landscape with film productions from the past two years.

In the ALFILM Spotlight "Canceled Futures, Endless Pasts: Speculative Fiction on and Archival Subversions of the (Post)colonial Condition," the genre of speculative fiction and the subversive use of the archive are at the centre of an artistic examination of the (post)colonial entanglements of the Arab region.

Masterclasses, panel discussions, Film Talks, special screenings, and a Closing Party on the 30th of April in Gretchen, round off the varied program of the 16th festival edition.

26th of April till the 2nd of May 2023