Competition German Animation
German Animation
Competition & Opening Ceremony
26.09.2025
, 19:00 – 21:00 hrs
| City Kino Wedding
Melinda MouzannarGermany, 2025 | 02:01 min | 2DAs a kid, my friend warned me about Abou kees, “The Bag Man”, who might come for me if I peeked under my bed. Abou Kees was an old Arab folktale of an angry figure who came after mischievous children and took them away in his bag. What if the tale was just an imaginative take on a real person that people feared to approach? The type of person filled with explosive anger that’s been bottled up for years, created by the weight of an unjust world order. Is it possible to see ourselves in Abou kees? What would we be able to uncover if we truly recognized the monsters within ourselves and others? The Weight of It All explores the recognition of collective trauma in everyone and the search for the real mischievous children, the true reason behind the emergence of our inner Abou Kees.
Robert Löbel, Max MörtlGermany, 2025 | 05:42 min | 2D, Stop MotionTIME is a dystopian and darkly whimsical animated short, unfolding in fragmented vignettes where characters collide—each caught in their own rhythm of time. From the seemingly endless drift of an hourglass to the frantic pulse of a multitasking worker, the film paints a surreal mosaic of how time is perceived, stretched, fractured, and consumed.
Aline Helmcke, Sandra Reyes, Juliane Franke, Franka Sachse, Catalina Giraldo, Ana VallejoGermany, 2025 | 00:14 min | 2D, Stop Motion, Pixilation, Cut-outA cartographer has lost his orientation: did his tools become useless or could it be that the terrain itself is changing? “Karten der Wildnis” is the story of the cartographer interpreted by seven animation artists who venture into the experiment of making a collaborative film. Analogue animation techniques and a poem by Daniela Danz are their starting points to approach the unknown, following the processes that occur when they enter into this adventure.
Harry BhaleraoGermany, 2025 | 04:41 min | 3DCharlie is overcome by guilt after murdering an innocent creature.
Anna SamoGermany, 2024 | 07:22 min | 2D, Stop Motion, Pixilation, painting on toilet paperAn artist insists on playing despite the world's disasters. A story told through a filmmaker’s art, inspired by Bach’s timeless music and painted on rolls of toilet paper in an homage to the tradition of drawing directly on 35 mm film.
Jelena MilunovićCroatia, Germany, Serbia, 2025 | 07:01 min | 2DA daughter gradually realizes that her father is struggling with mental illness. Isolated and rejected by society, he lives alone in a dark apartment, drifting like a balloon. She tries to find a way to reconnect and bring him back to solid ground
Derya DurmazGermany, 2023 | 01:56 min | Watercolor drawing on procreateA Berlin born little story... The city which fools you with its liberated outlook, tends to give you a slap in the face when you get into intimate relationships, only to find out that things still aren't so different then they were in the dark days of the past, when women had take responsibility for not only their actions, but also men’s, and had to bare the consequences all on their own...The film is calling the audience to remember that women's right to their own body, right to abortion and the (intersectional) feminist struggle are unfortunately and absolutely not issues of the past, but very present and burning issues and that not only women, but everyone should show solidarity.
Aljosha Klimov, Misha Sprits, Mitya KokorinGermany, 2026 | 12:00 min | 2D, 3D, Clay, Unreal Engine, CompositingOn New Year’s Eve, 1986 Oleg Proshkin, a low-level Soviet investigator, gets called out to a disturbance — in his own apartment building. Something’s off the moment he steps into the courtyard, and when he unlocks his door, he finds strangers inside. They’ve made themselves at home. Waiting for him: a Santa Claus he’s never seen before — and a disturbingly intelligent dog named Shapka. Santa says he’s been looking for Proshkin for years. When Proshkin was a boy, he mailed a postcard asking to be sent into space — the same space where, according to his mother, his father flew and never came back. Proshkin tries to fight. Tries to shout. It doesn’t matter. Santa drops the jolly act. He overpowers him, yanks a gift sack over his head, and hauls him off — past the rooflines, out into the black. A surreal ride into the unstable architecture of human memory, and the hairline crack between reality and madness we all balance on — right up until it gives way.
Paulina ZiolkowskaGermany, Mexico, Poland, 2026 | 07:36 min | 2D, Stop MotionA few exercises to procrastinate better, faster, and more efficiently.
Irina RubinaGermany, 2024 | 03:06 min | PinscreenThe language in which lullabies were sung to me kills. And I am with it. And the lullabies fall silent. An inner monologue between two languages and identities. Between the black and white of the pinscreen 'L’Alpine'.
Semiramis MamataGermany, Greece, 2025 | 04:21 min | 2DA three-part-story about a heart in pain, a cat, and a powerful witch.
Andy KaiserGermany, 2025 | 11:15 min | Stop MotionKeeper Clive is running out of supplies on his lighthouse somewhere in the Northern Seas. In his despair, he plays a sad tune on his horn, when a large whale notices him. As his supply ship sinks in a violent thunderstorm and his lighthouse buoy springs a leak, he has to expect the worst - if it weren't for the great whale….
Sasha SvirskyGermany, 2024 | 10:32 min | 2D, 3DWar for our attention has suddenly become an actual war. Information technologies appear not just as mere means for somebody’s ends but as something having an agency, as one of the acting forces rendering possible a horrific event, which is very hard to accept and almost impossible to comprehend. We have no control over it and are doomed to scroll through the newsfeed.
Kiana NaghshinehGermany, 2025 | 14:18 min | 2DIn the face of her body fading into stardust, Shari realises what truly matters to her.
Jalal MaghoutGermany, 2024 | 10:44 min | 2D, 3D, Drawing on paperIn a surreal odyssey, the Self seeks escape.
Anne BreymannGermany, 2025 | 04:14 min | Stop MotionTwo creatures meet on a tree. Their encounter goes deep down to the roots and beyond.
Matthias DaenschelGermany, 2024 | 03:00 min | Live Action, Stop MotionOver 5,000 photos come together to form a fast-paced hunt through Berlin's time tunnel - a restless search for cracks and open wounds of German history in the city.
Betina KuntzschGermany, Spain, 2024 | 10:00 min | 2DIn the spring of 1990 - between the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification - the first former GDR citizens fly to Mallorca. Mallorca is a place of longing for many East Germans, known from the colourful postcards of their West German relatives. An animated documentary film, a collage of postcards, holiday photos and documents.
Nina HoffmannGermany, 2024 | 03:39 min | 2D, Stop Motion, Cut-out, Clay, RotoscopieWhile gossiping about their neighbor, a frustrated couple carelessly asks a question to the universe. When the universe answers, it has unexpected consequences...
