52nd International Student Film Festival Sehsüchte
As an integral part of Potsdam’s cultural landscape and the state of Brandenburg, the festival will move out of the buildings of the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF and instead find itself in the heart of Potsdam. The new festival campus will reflect the cultural diversity of the state capital and at the same time bring international perspectives to Potsdam. Our identity and our programme are characterized by innovative films, fresh impulses and new perspectives that reflect current social and aesthetic discourses. Especially in a time marked by political crisis and social insecurity, Sehsüchte as an open-minded cultural event aims to create discursive spaces and to offer young filmmakers a platform to make themselves heard with their art. We see ourselves as a dynamic, young and courageous festival. Only by exploring unknown terrain, questioning existing structures and breaking out of patterns, space is created for new possibilities, for confrontation and inspiration.
We want to open and celebrate this space. We do not show the filmmakers of tomorrow, but of today. The future of film is now – is Sehsüchte.
| Motto / Theme / Focus | New Shores |
|---|---|
| Partner Country | Portugal |
| Venues | Waschhaus Potsdam, Thalia Programm Kinos, Film Museum Potsdam, Theaterschiff Potsdam |
| Films | 100 |
| Countries | 30 |
| Prize Money | 36000 € |
Trailer
Juries
| Feature Film | Hamed Soleimanzadeh, Tua El-Fawwal, Tobias Gottschlich |
|---|---|
| Animation | Letty Felgendreher, Natalia Freitas, Ali Soozandeh, Markus Kark, Johanna Roth |
| Documentary | Ayla Yildiz, Natalija Yefimkina, Evelyn Rack, Tina Leeb |
| Screenplay | Sarah Schnier, Alper Turfan, Hannah Schopf, Thomas Wendrich, Rosina Kaleab |
| Focus Production | Rand Beiruty, Lan Rommel, Jana-Maria Kreutzer, Nina Prange |
| More… | |
| 360° | Mélanie Courtinat, Chloé Lee, Fabito Rychter, Lina Reinsbakken, Irene Lema |
| Pitch | Bruno Alexander, Xenia Popescu, Tajo Hurrle, Christopher Sassenrath |
| Future: Kids | Florin Krengel, Sophia Laura Malivindi, Imran Arenz, Amelia Magret Dederichs, Paulina Tiedemann, Jonas Többe |
| Future: Teens | Noemi Hermann, Uli Kurokhtina, Marie-Luise Radik, Lucie Sieckmann, Rudi Wanner, Peppina Castronari |
Winning Films
A child is pulled up by a safety bar on a ski lift, then he gets stuck in the restroom and, finally, he is too slow when getting off the bus and accidentally drives away without his mother. A short episodic film about fears that seem more threatening than they are.
Best Children's Film
Lea has nightmares and her mother is not much help. In the future, Maria is supposed to help out as a temp in the house when a dark secret comes to light.
Best Youth Film
The people of the volcano Chimborazo hike for hours to gather nearby ice. This age-old tradition and the population’s livelihood is threatened by increasing climate change.
Best Animation Film
A sweet, innocent bunny rabbit girl is everything you wish for in a relationship. Then the mood shifts, and everything falls apart. But there is nothing you can’t fix with the right words, right?
Best 360° Film
A sun-starved teenager leaves his home in search of light and warmth. On the Balearic Islands, he tries to soak up the rays and bring them back to his bleak homeland of Great Britain. Hypnotised, he falls prey to the sun.
Outstanding Artistic Achievement Fiction Film
When a mother discovers her daughter with a cigarette, the father suspects that it is no ordinary cigarette. The seemingly harmonious and orderly family life threatens to fall apart.
Best Genre Film
Between cold concrete walls, riddled with holes from the ongoing war, a mother tries to protect her son from the loss of his father and keep him away from the attacks raging outside. Left completely to her own devices, she tries to embody both father and mother at the same time and soon reaches her limits.
Best Fiction Film
Actually, Tomas knows his parents. Born in Brazil in 1993 and adopted from there, he now lives with them in the Netherlands. Now he is faced with the question of whether he should look for his biological mother, or if there are reasons not to do so.
Best Documentary
When computer-savvy teen Robert meets the mysterious Maria on the Darknet, she makes him an unusual offer: program troll and bot armies for a right-wing underground organisation? The order is tempting - the consequences hardly foreseeable.
Best Pitch
Isi and Finn are actually happy, but one issue puts their otherwise harmonious relationship to the test. Longing for sexual intimacy, the couple begins to explore sex with physical disabilities alongside self-doubt, ultimately exploring one thing: what they really want.
Best Production
Eight-year-old Rosanna experiences a tremendous blow of fate: her brother falls seriously ill and is hospitalised. The only remedy is the inviting circus outside Rosanna’s window, which allows her to escape to a magical parallel society and lets her work through her fear of loss.
Best Screenplay
An intimate and personal look into the life of a young man returning to his hometown. In conversations with his mother, painful differences emerge in their views on love, family and togetherness.
Outstanding Artistic Achievement Documentary Film