Diana Iljine to leave FILMFEST MÜNCHEN

Munich – Diana Iljine will step down as the director of FILMFEST MÜNCHEN on October 1, 2023, of her own volition. She informed the supervisory board of Internationale Münchner Filmwochen GmbH of this decision during its meeting on Wednesday, May 10. From June 23 to July 1, 2023, the 40th edition of FILMFEST MÜNCHEN will be carried out under Diana Iljine’s direction.

Christoph Gröner, the longtime artistic director of FILMFEST MÜNCHEN, is expected to take over the management of IMF GmbH in 2024 and 2025 as of October 1. In recent years, Mr. Gröner has, under the direction of Diana Iljine, been instrumental in making the festival a prominent part of the international festival calendar and in securing notable international premieres for the Munich festival. A finding process will be launched for the management of the film festival from 2026.

“With the help of my magnificent team, I have been able to accomplish a lot of things in the past twelve years. Directing FILMFEST MÜNCHEN has been both a joy and an honor. Now I have decided to leave the festival after its 40th anniversary. This is not easy for me, because FILMFEST MÜNCHEN is an absolute gem and it’s upheld by an extremely dedicated team,” said Diana Iljine. “I wish Christoph Gröner and the team all the best for the future, and the film festival great visibility and success with audiences and the industry.”

“Ms. Iljine promised an international and outstanding festival when she took the helm, and she has kept her promise. FILMFEST MÜNCHEN is one of the leading film festivals in Germany. The City of Munich and the Free State of Bavaria, as a prominent location of media in Europe, have always benefited from this,” said Dr. Hans Michael Strepp, Ministerial Director at the Bavarian State Ministry of Digital Affairs. “In October 2022, Ms. Iljine was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit for this. We regret her departure after all these fruitful years. We wish her all the best along with new and exciting endeavors to come.”

Dr. Hans Michael Strepp is replacing the previous chair of the IMF Supervisory Board, deputy Munich mayor Katrin Habenschaden, effective immediately. Henceforth, Ms. Habenschaden will act as his deputy. The chair of the Supervisory Board of IMF GmbH rotates every two years between the Bavarian State Government and the City of Munich.

“I’d like to thank Diana Iljine for more than a decade of outstanding dedication to Munich as a city of filmmaking and moviegoing. Diana Iljine has turned FILMFEST MÜNCHEN into one of the leading festivals for the public in the German-speaking world,” said Deputy Chair of the Supervisory Board Katrin Habenschaden. “The coronavirus pandemic and the cancellation of the festival in the summer of 2020 were a critical time for FILMFEST MÜNCHEN. In spite of challenging conditions, Diana Iljine and her team succeeded in setting up a pandemic-compliant festival in 2021 which was enthusiastically received by audiences in Munich. Filmfest 2021 was perhaps the most important Filmfest of all, as it gave Munich, a city of the arts, reassurance during a difficult time. I wish Diana Iljine all the best.”

The first edition of FILMFEST MÜNCHEN was held in 1983 and featured some 100 films. Today, it’s usually about 150 films that are screened as world premieres or as European/German premieres in the festival theaters. Over the past twelve years, Diana Iljine and her team have thrilled and enchanted some three quarters of a million visitors with a first-rate program. In recent years, the festival has welcomed such internationally renowned actors and actresses as Melanie Griffith, Michael Caine, Ellen Burstyn, Bryan Cranston, Emma Thompson, Ralph Fiennes, and Antonio Banderas, as well as such masterful directors as Sofia Coppola, Lucrecia Martel, Alexander Payne, and Bong Joon-ho, whom it has honored in retrospectives and homages.

Diana Iljine, who holds a degree in communications, has directed FILMFEST MÜNCHEN since 2011. During this time, she has revitalized the festival and made it fit for the future, doubling its budget and the funds obtained through sponsorships in the process. At the start of her tenure, she reformed the program structure and in 2013 established a section of high-quality TV series as the first motion picture festival in Germany to do so. Under her stewardship, the CineMasters, CineVision, and CineRebels competitions were introduced, which bring first-rate films and recent discoveries to Munich. Diana Iljine also focused on new types of events, particularly in the B2B sector, such as the Lunch Box and the Beergarden Convention, where creative individuals and film industry representatives come together.

In addition to directing Germany’s second-largest — and internationally recognized — film festival in the summer, the Frankfurt-born director’s responsibilities over the past twelve years have included the FILMSCHOOLFEST MUNICH, a student film festival held each year in autumn to promote young international talent.