Competition German Animation

  • Melinda Mouzannar
    Germany, 2025 | 02:01 min | 2D
    As 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.
  • Harry Bhalerao
    Germany, 2025 | 04:41 min | 3D
    Charlie is overcome by guilt after murdering an innocent creature.
  • Anna Samo
    Germany, 2024 | 07:22 min | 2D, Stop Motion, Pixilation, painting on toilet paper
    An 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.
  • Derya Durmaz
    Germany, 2023 | 01:56 min | Watercolor drawing on procreate
    A 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.
  • Irina Rubina
    Germany, 2024 | 03:06 min | Pinscreen
    The 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 Mamata
    Germany, Greece, 2025 | 04:21 min | 2D
    A three-part-story about a heart in pain, a cat, and a powerful witch.
  • Sasha Svirsky
    Germany, 2024 | 10:32 min | 2D, 3D
    War 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.
  • Jalal Maghout
    Germany, 2024 | 10:44 min | 2D, 3D, Drawing on paper
    In a surreal odyssey, the Self seeks escape.
  • Anne Breymann
    Germany, 2025 | 04:14 min | Stop Motion
    Two creatures meet on a tree. Their encounter goes deep down to the roots and beyond.
  • Matthias Daenschel
    Germany, 2024 | 03:00 min | Live Action, Stop Motion
    Over 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 Kuntzsch
    Germany, Spain, 2024 | 10:00 min | 2D
    In 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 Hoffmann
    Germany, 2024 | 03:39 min | 2D, Stop Motion, Cut-out, Clay, Rotoscopie
    While gossiping about their neighbor, a frustrated couple carelessly asks a question to the universe. When the universe answers, it has unexpected consequences...