Freiburg­er Film­fo­rum 1985 – 2023 

Since its FOUNDATION in 1985, the fes­ti­val has been revolv­ing around cur­rent, his­tor­i­cal, sociopo­lit­i­cal, and cul­tur­al themes. While in the begin­ning, focus was often on the every­day life of ethnic minori­ties, our pro­grams today increas­ing­ly explore the spread of urban­iza­tion and its con­se­quences. In the last few years, we have also addressed the ques­tion of the West’s respon­si­bil­i­ty for its colo­nial his­to­ry and the resti­tu­tion of cul­tur­al arti­facts. Global social inequal­i­ties are also an inevitably recur­ring theme. 

With #JUNCTIONS and the dig­i­ti­za­tion of the fes­ti­val in 2021, the Freiburg­er Film­fo­rum has intro­duced a new sec­tion to its main film week pro­gram while also broad­en­ing its audi­ence beyond the analog cinema to Nairo­bi and Karachi. The basic idea behind #JUNCTIONS is to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly screen films in dif­fer­ent places then to bring the var­i­ous audi­ences togeth­er to engage in a tran­scul­tur­al dis­cus­sion of the movies. The pro­grams are curat­ed togeth­er with local groups. We were unfor­tu­nate­ly not able to carry out this format as planned in 2021 due to the pan­dem­ic, so it will be the high­light of the fes­ti­val in 2023. In addi­tion to Freiburg, the #JUNCTION_locations will be Nairo­bi, Kenya, for the second time as well as Ahmed­abad, India, for the first time. 

The Filmforum’s mis­sion is to present a nuanced pic­ture of the real­i­ty of people’s lives, espe­cial­ly those out­side the West­ern main­stream. Thanks to dig­i­ti­za­tion, the fes­ti­val is becom­ing more diverse, and the pro­gram selec­tion more mul­ti­fac­eted, while enabling a transna­tion­al audi­ence to inter­con­nect. A spe­cial sec­tion for young and activist cinema was cre­at­ed in 2015 with the STUDENTS PLATFORM. Stu­dents from many dif­fer­ent uni­ver­si­ties regard the fes­ti­val as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to take a field­trip and engage in dis­cus­sions about film. 

In the nine­teen edi­tions of the Film­fo­rum so far, rough­ly 800 films from 90 dif­fer­ent coun­tries from every con­ti­nent have been shown and dis­cussed with audiences. 

An event by Kom­mu­nales Kino Freiburg