What a fantastic festival!

It's a wrap! On Sunday 17 November, the 73rd edition of our festival came to a festive close. Our closing film this year was the French-Canadian film m ›Shepherds‹ by Sophie Deraspe, which took us to the French Alps with its romantic tale of escapism into nature. In the afternoon, a final highlight of the Young Film Festival took place in the festival lounge in Heidelberg's Karlstorbahnhof to great acclaim: Children's book author Alex Rühle read from his latest book "Zippel macht Zirkus" about the ghost Zippel that lives in a door lock, and delighted the young festival visitors.

We would like to thank the audience, our international film guests, our numerous partners and the festival cinemas for 11 wonderful festival days! This year's main programme featured 71 feature-length films from over 40 countries. These included films from the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Morocco, Iran, Romania, India, Brazil, Israel and Palestine. 29 of the films were German premieres. We were also able to record a new audience increase this year: More than 35,000 festival-goers, of which over 27,000 were in the cinemas and around 8,000 took part in events such as panels, performances, exhibitions, masterclasses, concerts and other events.

Save the Date: The 74th IFFMH will take place from 6 to 16 November 2025.