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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20260417T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20260417T193000
SUMMARY:International Competition 1
DESCRIPTION:Year after year\, our man-made world seems more out of joint. Wars and genocides\, climate collapse\, ideological conflict\, digital outrage\, funding cuts – take your pick. And with every new film festival edition\, the question of its role in such a world returns.\nYear after year\, the answers sound familiar: champion the arts\, support filmmakers\, foster dialogue\, build bridges. Worthy phrases – and repeated often enough to risk becoming institutional elevator music\, mantras recited out of habit. So why keep writing intros if whoever reads them already knows what they will say?\nPerhaps because an introduction is neither justification nor manifesto\, but an invitation – setting the tone for how we wish to gather. Festivals cannot fix the world\, but they can carve out temporary spaces where we practise being together: listening\, laughing\, disagreeing\, attentive and curious.\nThe films ground that attention. This year’s programme navigates the complexities of our times with works that sometimes shout and sometimes whisper – films that hesitate\, observe and insist on ambiguity in a world demanding certainty. Some confront systems of power directly\; others trace them in the everyday across individual identities and collective histories.\nWhen audiences meet these works\, differences inevitably surface. Expectations collide\; assumptions are challenged. Yet this friction is not a failure\, but pluralism at work. We enter the cinema shaped by our own experiences\, hopes and desires\; to share those spaces means to encounter viewpoints that unsettle our own\, and to renegotiate what we thought we knew.\nFestivals are not neutral containers. Every selection carries a perspective\, reflecting not only the realities filmmakers witness but also the kinds of conversations we as programmers hope to host in a temporary landscape shaped by those who enter it. We may keep writing these introductions simply to mark that shared beginning – to acknowledge that\, for a few hours\, we choose to gather\, remain present and discover what it means to watch\, think and feel together.\n\nVincent Förster on behalf of the Selection Committee for the International Competition
LOCATION:Dresden\, Programmkino Ost\, Gloria
DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20260809T031307
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