ALFILM – Arab Film Festival Berlin 23.-30.04.2025

HAU Hebbel am Ufer, City Kino Wedding, Kino in der KulturBrauerei, Sinema Transtopia, Wolf Kino, Spore Initiative, and Gretchen.

Taking place between the 23rd - 30th of April 2025, the 16th edition of ALFILM – Arab Film Festival Berlin features a wide selection of feature films, documentaries, and short films.

ALFILM will open with To a Land Unknown by Mahdi Fleifel. The film, which premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival, is currently in cinemas in the United Kingdom and was awarded a prize at the Munich International Film Festival. It will be celebrating its Berlin premiere at ALFILM. To a Land Unknown takes its audience to Athens, where cousins Chatila and Reda struggle with a fate similar to that of hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians worldwide — life as refugees. Stuck at Europe’s borders, they dream of reaching Germany and starting a new, dignified life there. The opening of ALFILM, along with two further film screenings, will take place this year for the first time at HAU Hebbel am Ufer and tickets are already available here!

As in previous years, the festival promises its audience, in its two program sections, a cinematic experience of artistic merit and relevance to timely issues. The ALFILM Selection highlights the richness of the contemporary Arab cinema landscape with film productions from the past two years.

In the ALFILM Spotlight Canceled Futures, Endless Pasts: Speculative Fiction on and Archival Subversions of the (Post)colonial Condition the genre of speculative fiction and the subversive use of the archive are at the centre of an artistic examination of the (post)colonial entanglements of the Arab region.

Masterclasses, panel discussions, Film Talks, special screenings, and a Closing Party on the 30th of April in Gretchen, round off the varied programme of the 16th festival edition.

The complete festival program with detailed information will be online at the beginning of April 2025 on www.alfilm.berlin.