Looking back at 40 years of the Filmfest

Four pieces of reading material, corresponding to each decade of the festival, accompanied by wonderful galleries of images preserving unforgettable moments from the Filmfest, are just the beginning. In the weeks to come, this online retrospective will be expanded to include articles on specific topics, as our curators revisit festival sections and themes of the past and link them to the burning issues of today. You can also look forward to a series of very entertaining personal anecdotes from a wide variety of people from the Filmfest cosmos. Two further texts will explore the iconic rafting trip down the Isar River and the no less legendary indie party. So keep stopping by the website to celebrate this anniversary with us!

Free events in Munich

We’ve also planned a lot of events in the analog realm to shorten the wait until the 40th FILMFEST MÜNCHEN (June 23 – July 1). A series of free events in Munich in cooperation with many great partners will draw connections to past film festivals as well as to the upcoming one, thus heightening the anticipation.

BAADASSSSS CINEMA: An Evening with Sir Isaac Julien

Museum Brandhorst and FILMFEST MÜNCHEN welcome in their program Sir Isaac Julien, a true celebrity of the international art scene. Just this year Tate Britain is honoring his outstanding oeuvre of four decades with the comprehensive solo exhibition “Isaac Julien: What Freedom is to Me.” On May 9, as part of Museum Brandhorst’s longstanding collaboration with FILMFEST MÜNCHEN, Isaac Julien will personally introduce his acclaimed documentary BAADASSSSS CINEMA (2002), about 1970s blaxploitation films, in the foyer of Museum Brandhorst, followed by a talk on the history of black cinema then and now.

This focus has already repeatedly played a central role in past editions of FILMFEST MÜNCHEN, most recently in 2019, also in collaboration with Museum Brandhorst. And indeed it is exactly 30 years since FILMFEST MÜNCHEN presented a series titled “Early Black Cinema” – films by Black directors, shot with Black actors, for a Black audience. This series will also be recalled on May 9 in a short YouTube compilation.

sir isaac julien   photo credit: Thierry Bal       

Photography exhibition in the Fünf Höfe

At the FÜNF HÖFE in June, you’ll marvel at the portraits of the stars taken by photographer Mike Kraus. Since 2012, visiting celebrities at FILMFEST MÜNCHEN have gone to Kraus’s studio during the festival period. The result: impressive portraits that will be on view starting in mid-June as part of a free exhibition.

Premiere of the docudrama ROY – EINE LEGENDE GEHT ZU ENDE

Less than a week before the festival starts, anyone nostalgic for a somewhat different Munich in the 1980s and ’90s will be in for a treat. The Museum Lichtspiele will be celebrating the premiere of the docudrama ROY – EINE LEGENDE GEHT ZU ENDE by Franz Meiller on June 19. This film offers a musical and melancholy look back at a legendary bar and its heyday.

Workshop with Jakob Lass

A school screening of LOVE STEAKS (already fully booked) will be held on April 20. After the screening, director Jakob Lass will answer pupils’ questions about his film, which earned the German Cinema New Talent Award in all four categories at Filmfest 2013. In addition, a film workshop will be held in cooperation with the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF), the Munich Volkstheater, and the LUISE center for the arts, in which teenagers will learn the art of improvisation in front of and behind the camera, alongside university students majoring in film directing. This event is offered exclusively to school classes — today’s youth are, after all, tomorrow’s moviegoers.

Further information about the events planned as well as free tickets to them will be announced soon.