Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Pimedate Ööde filmifestival, PÖFF) celebrated its 29th edition from November 7 to 23, 2025. 42 German productions and co-productions had been invited to participate in the festival lineup and industry event and some of them were even able to take home awards. Actor Samirah Breuer took part in the Black Night Stars talent program on behalf of Germany and received the award in a special ceremony.
In November Mala Reinhardt, a FACE TO FACE WITH GERMAN FILMS ambassador, visited the International Feature Film Jury at Festival dei Popoli in Florence. She is now heading to film festivals in Thailand, China, and Cambodia as part of her ambassador role.
Another FACE TO FACE WITH GERMAN FILMS ambassador was also travieling. Writer-director Mariko Minoguchi toured the US and Canada last month, presenting her ZEIT VERBRECHEN episode "December" in Montreal and New York, including a Q&A at the German Film Office’s German Movie Night. She concluded her trip at GERMAN CURRENTS in Los Angeles, attending events and another screening of her episode.
From November 7–15, German Films and Goethe Institute China, in partnership with Broadway Cinema and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Beijing, presented 12 outstanding current German productions at the 13th Festival of German Cinema in China.
The European Film Academy has announced the nominations in various categories for the 38th European Film Awards. The German films RIEFENSTAHL, SOUND OF FALLING, and WITH HASAN IN GAZA are among the nominations, as well as nominations for German actors Leonie Benesch and Idan Weiss, German co-productions and talents in the arts & crafts categories. The 38th European Film Awards will take place on January 17, 2026, in Berlin.
18 German short films have been submitted to the 98th Academy Awards® in the categories “Animated Short Film,” “Live Action Short Film,” and “Documentary Short Film” after qualifying for submission by winning an award or being screened in theaters in the United States between October 1, 2024, and September 30, 2025.
The nominees for the 41st IDA Documentary Awards and the 19th Cinema Eye Honors were announced in November. Among the nominees are serveral German short films as well as German documentaries. The winners will be presented in a ceremony in Los Angeles on December 6, 2025.
Udo Kier, the Cologne-born actor whose career spanned more than 250 films and several continents, has died in California at the age of 81. The German actor settled in Palm Springs, where he cultivated a life filled with art and architecture and became a well-known figure at the Palm Springs Film Festival.
The focus of the next session for the English-language KINO! FILM SALON online film club on December 14 will be the drama BARBARA by Christian Petzold.
We will end the year with the 88th and 89th episode of our podcast SHORT TAKE. Our guests are sound designer and editor Billie Mind, known for her work on the German Oscar® entry SOUND OF FALLING, as well as director and animator Tobias Eckerlin, whowas recently awarded with the Student Academy Award® in Gold for his short film A SPARROW'S SONG.
We are closing our eighth season of the DEEP DIVE GENRE podcast focusing on SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY with this 7th episode. We spoke to Dr. Kristina Jaspers of the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek.
Awards for Judith Kaufmann & Fabian Gamper at CamerImage At the 33rd edition of CamerImage, the most important film festival for cinematography held in Toruń, Poland, German cinematographer Judith Kaufmann won the main prize, the Golden Frog, for her work on Petra Volpe's LATE SHIFT. Fabian Gamper won the Silver Frog for SOUND OF FALLING. In the Student Etudes competition, the German projects SKIN ON SKIN (FABW) and WALUD (HFF Munich) were honored.
Animated, Documentary and International Feature Films eligible for 98th Oscars® announced The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences® has announced the list of all submissions for Oscar® nominations in the categories "Best International Feature Film," (86) "Best Animated Feature Film," (35) and "Best Documentary Feature Film" (201) that meet the selection criteria. Among the eligible films are the German productions SOUND OF FALLING (Best International Feature Film), STITCH HEAD (Best Animated Feature Film) as well as ARCHITECTON and RIEFENSTAHL (Best Documentary Feature Film). You can find the complete list of eligible films for consideration for Best International Feature Film, Best Animated Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature Film here. 98th Academy Awards preliminary voting for select categories will begin on Monday, December 8, 2025, and end on Friday, December 12, 2025. Shortlists for the 98th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, December 16, 2025. Nominations for the 98th Academy Awards will be announced on Thursday, January 22, 2026.
MDR children's series AUF FRITZIS SPUREN wins Emmy The MDR series AUF FRITZIS SPUREN – WIE WAR DAS SO IN DER DDR? has won an Emmy for international television productions. At the awards ceremony in New York, the children's series prevailed in the "Kids: Factual & Entertainment" category against competitors from Brazil, UK, and South Africa. The partly animated six-part series by Ralf Kukula and Matthias Bruhn is set in divided Germany shortly before reunification. The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences presents the awards separately from the national Emmys, which were presented in September. Sixty-four nominees from 26 countries were nominated, and awards were presented in sixteen categories.
German Short Films 2025 – Annual Online Catalogue Complete With the third and final update for 2025, 35 new shorts have been added to the Online Short Film Catalogue. The members of the AG Kurzfilm – German Short Film Association and a jury have selected a broad spectrum of short films - fiction films, animated films, experimental films and documentaries as well as various hybrid forms. The update includes films that have premiered at festivals such as Oberhausen, Cannes, Annecy, Locarno, Venice and more. Everyone interested can search for German short films in the online catalogue using a wide range of functions, keywords, themes, categories, etc. International film professionals can also screen the films online after registering. Nine short documentaries and animations from the update were registered on DOK Leipzig’s Market Library as well. The trailer for the update is available here. The 2025 catalogue selection is now complete, with a total of 94 short films added this year. Almost 1,200 short films produced since 2004 are now available for viewing. The selection process is currently underway for the films of the next update which will go online in February 2026 in time for the festivals of Clermont-Ferrand and Berlin.
Calls for applications
ACE Mentoring Programme EU 2026: German Films cooperates with the ACE Mentoring Programme, which aims to support upcoming producers in managing their careers and developing their international network. Each year up to 10 producers, based in the EU or a Creative Europe MEDIA Programme country, will be selected. To best benefit from the programme, producers should have a full-length project in development – fiction, animation or documentary. Programme dates are February – December 2026 with a total of 4 (online) meetings held throughout the year. Deadline to apply is December 9, 2025. More information can be found here.
Sheffield Doc Fest - MeetMarket Entries: The MeetMarket welcomes entries from makers around the world, with projects either in development, production, post-production, or rough cut stage. This year, submissions from creators whose film ideas are rooted in podcast storytelling are encouraged. This can be an investigative series, a personal narrative, or an audio documentary. Deadline is January 28, 2026. More information can be found here.
DOK.fest Munich - VFF Documentary Production Award: The VFF Documentary Production Award honours the role of production in the creation of documentary feature films. Producers are invited to submit their current documentary films. The award is donated by the VFF Verwertungsgesellschaft der Film und Fernsehproduzenten mbH. Deadline is February 2, 2026. More information can be found here.
Scholarship at the Tarabya Cultural Academy in Istanbul: Artists from various disciplines who live and work in Germany can apply for a four- to eight-month residency at the Tarabya Cultural Academy in Istanbul. In addition, Turkish-German co-production grants will once again be awarded in cooperation with the Allianz Foundation. Tandems of creative professionals from Germany and Turkey can apply for these grants together. Deadline is December 29, 2025. More information can be found here.
56th Giffoni Film Festival: The Giffoni Film Festival represents a place for vivacious interaction among filmmakers, producers and distributors and also establishes a bridge between the industry production universe and its target audience. The festival will take place from July 17 to 25, 2026. Deadline for submissions is May 11, 2026. More information can be found here.
