For years now, exground filmfest has ranked among the largest and most important film festivals in the German state of Hesse – while achieving a great degree of recognition, respect and resonance well beyond the state borders. As evidence, between 1990 and 2024, audience numbers rose by almost 650% to around 15,000 visitors annually. Every year, exground filmfest is not only an important attraction for film enthusiasts from near and far for ten days in November – it also serves as an important discussion forum for around 250 accredited journalists, specialists and guests from the film industry – in other words, for important multipliers from within the industry and beyond.
In 2025, exground filmfest will take place for the 38th time – reason enough to take a look back and review the most important developments since the founding of the festival.

The founding fathers and mothers of exground filmfest certainly never dared to dream that it would develop so quickly into a film festival of international stature. In 1990, six film enthusiasts got together in Wiesbaden and founded a non-profit association under the name “Wiesbadener Kinofestival e. V.”, with the aim of organising a film festival featuring avant-garde and underground productions and thus providing an alternative to the dreary monotony of the local cinema scene. At that time, the range of challenging and artistic films on offer in Wiesbaden was very limited. All of the city’s cinemas belonged to one operator, who primarily showed Hollywood blockbusters. In addition, there was no arthouse cinema in Wiesbaden at the time – that is, no venue for productions outside the commercially oriented mainstream.

A film festival also needs a name. Since the festival was focused on experimental films and underground productions, a portmanteau derived from the dual descriptors seemed an obvious choice: “exground”. In the early years of the festival, “on screen” was added. Thus, the festival name “exground on screen” was born.

In its first two years, the festival took place twice a year, each time for a period of four days. At the premiere in April 1990, the festival team presented the spa town audience with contemporary independent film greats from New York like Richard Kern and Lydia Lunch, alongside, by way of comparison, the early films of Andy Warhol, such as SLEEP and EMPIRE. This world-famous cinematic work by Warhol shows the Empire State Building in Manhattan as captured over the course of eight hours with a fixed camera. So, it is fair to say that even at exground filmfest’s premiere edition, the “American Independents” occupied quite a lot of space within the program – which has remained the case to the present day. At the second edition of exground on screen in the autumn of 1990, among other works, the program included Rosa von Praunheim’s AIDS-TRILOGIE and music films treating “Einstürzende Neubauten” and the Yugoslavian band “Laibach”. In addition, film students from Wiesbaden and Offenbach presented their work to an interested and experimental-minded audience.

First Prize Winner in the German Short Film Competition: Christoph Schuch (right)

In 1993, exground filmfest launched the German Short Film Competition – still going strong today – heralding the triumph of short film in the Hessian state capital. Ever since, this event has developed into a real attraction, an audience magnet in Wiesbaden, the surrounding region and far beyond: more and more viewers from near and far want to join in voting on which filmmakers get to take home prize money totalling EUR 6,000. Because, in spite of all the surprises that exground filmfest has in store every year, one thing is certain: the screenings of the short film competition always sell out very quickly! The award ceremony always takes place on the last day of the festival – following the second screening of the 10 to 15 competition films, which must be produced in Germany and may not exceed a running time of 20 minutes.

Apropos competitions: in 2002, an expert jury awarded exground’s first ON-VIDEO Award for the best international short film in video format, worth EUR 1,000. Every year, an international jury was tasked with determining which director would take home the prize for the “best film” in video format. One of the aims of the new competition was to offer a forum for young artists too, who, for financial reasons, tended not to shoot their works on film but instead frequently resorted to the considerably more affordable medium of video. And the competition’s success proved the festival team right: so many artistically interesting and professionally produced short films of up to 20 minutes in length were submitted to the International ON-VIDEO Competition in its heyday that the number of screenings increased significantly from festival to festival.

In 1995, with films by Takeshi Kitano and Wong Kar-wai, exground filmfest initiated the new section “News from Asia”, which has been an integral part of the festival program ever since (although since 2012 this has no longer been as its own separate festival series, but instead within the scope of the “International” or “World Cinema” section). As a result of this programming move, Japanese, South Korean and Thai productions, as well as films from Taiwan and Singapore, were already being shown in Hesse’s state capital and being made accessible to a wider audience long before they became “fashionable” in Germany. Here, too, the selection team proved to be a reliable seismograph for the latest developments and trends in the international film market. Among the highlights of exground filmfest’s Asian programming focus were undoubtedly several films by the now internationally renowned Takeshi Kitano, but also the German premieres of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE by Wong Kar-wai, 9 SOULS by Toshiaki Toyoda (alongside Takashi Miike, one of the most interesting representatives of New Japanese Cinema at the time) and M by Ryuichi Hiroki. In 2011 and 2012, exground filmfest devoted a special focus to new Philippine cinema – including the German premiere of MONDOMANILA OR: HOW I FIXED MY HAIR AFTER A RATHER LONG JOURNEY by internationally renowned filmmaker Khavn De La Cruz.

In 1999, the festival finally took on its final name, as we know it today: “exground filmfest”. Over the past 35 years, nearly 420,000 viewers have attended the festivalֹ’s events. Later German Film Award winners such as Oskar Röhler, Academy Award winner Les Bernstien and Josefine Preuß, who has won the Grimme and German Television Awards, among others, presented their films in Wiesbaden. In addition, German directing talents who have established themselves in the intervening years showed their early works at Caligari FilmBühne, including Aylin Tezel with her directorial debut FALLING INTO PLACE and Sophie Linnenbaum with her first feature film THE ORDINARIES. Furthermore, Axel Ranisch won the Audience Award in the International Youth Film Competition at exground youth days with his feature film ICH FÜHL MICH DISCO. The fact that the name exground filmfest already enjoyed a solid reputation both at home and abroad was also demonstrated by the more than 2,000 submissions for the international program and competitions during this period. Many films involving world renowned directors and cast members had their German or European premieres in Wiesbaden, including works by or featuring Quentin Tarantino, Mike Figgis, Wayne Wang, Peter Jackson, Abel Ferrara, Hal Hartley, Gregg Araki, Wong Kar-wai, Takeshi Kitano, Kijoshi Kurosawa, Julian Schnabel, Christopher Walken and Tim Burton. Time and again, the exground filmfest team proved that it “(works) as a reliable seismograph, indicating where something is happening in international film” (Strandgut, November 2002).

With its “youth days”, established in 2004, exground filmfest has been providing a forum to introduce young people aged twelve and up to the medium of film – far beyond the usual uniform fare presented on television and in mainstream theatres. With this step, the festival organizers were aiming to kill two birds with one stone – and indeed this has worked out quite well. On one hand, they saw here the possibility to entice 12- to 18-year-olds to check out some of the rest of the films on offer at the festival beyond those of the international youth film program and thus to draw in a new, younger audience segment – while on the other hand they saw the chance to significantly rejuvenate the organisation by integrating younger blood in the ranks of the festival team in the medium-term and thus ensure that there would be a future for exground filmfest.

In 2005, the youth film festival within the festival was expanded into the “youth days – International Youth Film Competition” and endowed with prize money in the amount of EUR 2,500, which has been awarded since then by a five-member jury composed of school students from Wiesbaden. The films selected for this section – drawn from submissions from all over the world – are characterised by the filmmakers’ unique treatment of the lived realities of young people: instead of approaching these realities from the adult perspective, the works featured here offer immediate potential for identification – among other things due to the fact that the films have often been conceived in part in co-operation with young (non-professional) actors. In 2005, the “youth days” were extended with the “Wiesbaden Youth Film Competition”: since then, young talents from the ages of twelve to eighteen have had the chance to present their films to a large audience that is tasked with choosing the winning entry. From 2007 on this short film competition for local youth was endowed with prize money in the amount of EUR 450 (eventually increased in 2017 to EUR 500), which until 2018 was sponsored by Hesse’s State Agency for Civic Education. The following year, Hesse’s State Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and the Arts took over funding for the award for several years. Finally, Wiesbadener Kinofestival e. V. took over the funding of the prize money in 2021, which it continues to do today. In addition, since 2016, the Mainz-based Apple dealer ergo sum has also sponsored a non-cash prize package for second place in the Wiesbaden Youth Film Competition, which was initially endowed with EUR 150 and has been endowed with EUR 200 since 2023.

Why look far afield when there are good things to be found so close at hand? In keeping with this maxim, the “Wiesbaden Special – Short Film Competition” was launched in 2005 alongside the two competitions already held in the scope of the “youth days”. This audience awarded competition for best short film from a local director, endowed with a prize of EUR 500, proved to be a big hit with the audience and a big draw from its very first edition. And the festival team once again proved its knack for putting together a great program: the first prize-winning film, Stephan Müller’s MR. SCHWARTZ, MR. HAZEN & MR. HORLOCKER, went on to win awards at numerous international festivals – even at the Cannes International Film Festival. Two other winning films enjoyed a similar level of subsequent success: 2006’s BENIDORM by Carolin Schmitz, which went on to win the German Film Award among other honours, and 2008’s BETWEEN by Tim Bollinger, who won Hesse’s Film Academy Award with his production. A welcome side effect: successes of this nature also serve to reinforce the organisers of exground filmfest in their commitment to Wiesbaden as the festival location, as made clear in the competition focus.

“Why look far afield when there are good things to be found so close at hand?” What had long been true for exground filmfest also applied to German cinema, which was enjoying increasing international success at this time. The organisational team dedicated a separate festival series to it for the 22nd edition of exground filmfest: “News from Germany”. In addition, a pair of institutions used the international film festival in Wiesbaden as a proven professional platform for their competitions: the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs presented the winners of its nationwide competition “Film ab! 50”, and the Intervideo Young Talent Award, organised for the first time by the Mainz-based film production company of the same name, was presented at the opening of the exground youth days. The latter received the German Cultural Sponsorship Prize for 2010, which indirectly confirmed the reputation of exground filmfest as a proven platform for high-quality short and feature film programs.

For the first time in its 20-year history, exground filmfest paid special tribute to an artist: the curtain opened for eight films featuring German actor, screenwriter and director Ulli Lommel, who made cinema history with several of his own works. These include LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH (with Lommel in the role of an ice-cold gangster in Fassbinder’s first outing), DIE ZÄRTLICHKEIT DER WÖLFE (TENDERNESS OF THE WOLVES) from 1973 (Lommel’s breakthrough as a director), as well as two cult films produced by Andy Warhol: BLANK GENERATION from 1978 (with a fantastic performance from Carole Bouquet in one of the main roles), and COCAINE COWBOYS from 1979 (featuring Hollywood star Jack Palance, among others). Lommel also did pioneering genre work, for instance with his horror thriller THE BOOGEYMAN from 1980, his most commercially successful turn as a director (including a four-week run as number one at the US box office). The homage was rounded off with a reading by Ulli Lommel, from his autobiography ZÄRTLICHKEIT DER WÖLFE – BEGEGNUNGEN (TENDERNESS OF WOLVES – ENCOUNTERS) at Wiesbaden’s Wartburg and the opening of his exhibition “American PhotoNovellas” at Art Gallery Wiesbaden.

In 2011, exground filmfest presented its first comprehensive retrospective of the work of a single artist: in the scope of the country focus on Israel, the organisational team showed the multi-award-winning documentary films of Eyal Sivan, whose work is the subject of unusually heated debate, especially in Israel. Once again, exground filmfest proved itself to be a platform for intense discussions and lively exchange.

To mark the festival’s 25th anniversary in 2012, the organisational team surprised the audience with two very special program items: the exhibition YOUR FORTUNATE EYES by Israel’s most renowned contemporary photographer, Rudi Weissenstein, and KINO À LA MINUTE by Swiss performance artist Nora de Baan, which served as an atypical expansion of the country focus on Switzerland. In addition, in the scope of a look back at 25 years of festival history, exground filmfest presented highlights from past editions of the festival, including TIME OF THE WOLF by Michael Haneke, THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA by Tommy Lee Jones – and a program prepared especially for the occasion by US-American director Karl Nussbaum entitled THE ART OF FILM AND VIDEO PERFORMANCE.

At exground youth days, an additional award was introduced in 2011: an initially unendowed prize for the best short film in the scope of the exground filmfest’s youth film festival, which has featured prize money in the amount of EUR 500 since 2018.

Since 2013, the prize presented by the youth jury in the “youth days – International Youth Film Competition” has been accompanied by an audience award endowed with EUR 1,000 in prize money. Using ballots (exclusively digital since 2023), film fans have the opportunity to pick their favourite among the youth films from around the world – and thus collectively choose the winner, who receives EUR 1,000 in prize money sponsored by the State Capital of Wiesbaden. This has further enhanced the stature of the youth film section at exground filmfest, which has since had a positive effect on the willingness of internationally active distribution and production companies to submit films for the International Youth Film Competition as part of exground youth days.

In 2014, the festival section “Neues aus Deutschland” (“News from Germany”) was given a new name: since then, it has been known as “Made in Germany”, reflecting the increasingly international profile of exground filmfest.

With its keen sense for social developments and political issues, the exground filmfest organisational team curated a program of short films on the theme of “flight” for the first time in its history. In addition, starting in 2016 the exground youth days team began to consciously seek to integrate young refugees into the Wiesbaden Youth Jury, which determines the winner of the main prize in the International Youth Film Competition every year. Furthermore, since this period young refugees have also been given the opportunity to work with the medium of film themselves in workshops and present the results on the big screen in the scope of exground youth days.

In order to make the festival’s films from all over the world accessible to an even wider audience, the organisers of exground filmfest have been providing specially produced German subtitles for all feature and documentary films running in the “primetime” slot and all youth films at Caligari FilmBühne. This also applies to all feature films from the respective country and thematic focuses. Apropos country and thematic focuses: since 2016, Kulturfonds RheinMain has generously supported the annual festival focus as a sponsor. The annual focus is accompanied by supporting events, such as panel discussions, video art in co-operation with Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden, as well as concerts and readings. Since the beginning of this support, selected films from the country and theme focuses have also been shown at selected cinemas in Frankfurt am Main, Mainz and Darmstadt, including Pupille – Kino in der Uni.

Another premiere took place in 2016 in the festival section “Made in Germany”: Since this year, exground filmfest has been awarding a prize for the best German feature film – the world’s first film prize awarded by a jury composed of correctional facility inmates. DAS BRETT is endowed with at least EUR 1,000 in prize money and sponsored by “Die WERFT – Kulturbühne in der JVA Wiesbaden”. As the latter organisation has not yet resumed its work in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the audience has been determining the winner of the competition for DAS BRETT since 2020. In addition, the prize money been increased to EUR 3,000 in the interim.

In 2020, for the first time in its history, exground filmfest was unable to take place in front of audiences at venues in the Rhine-Main region. Thanks to the organisational team’s wise foresight in planning for two scenarios, a specially selected program was still able to go ahead online with the skilled support of Festival Scope; in addition, the opening and closing events were streamed live – conjuring up a bit of festival atmosphere in living rooms across the country via our YouTube channel. The following year, it was only possible to show around 200 short and feature films to audiences following the strictest hygiene protocols and with significantly reduced seating in cinemas, but we were even able to welcome a few film guests to our festival centre. And even in 2022 the effects of the coronavirus pandemic were still being felt, with audiences once again not finding their way to the festival venues in the accustomed numbers due to rising infection rates, and the board of exground filmfest strongly recommended that masks be worn when not seated in the cinema in order to protect guests, staff and audiences. The dual planning approach over all these years demanded a lot from the all-volunteer organisational team, but it also meant that those responsible for the Wiesbaden film festival quickly familiarised themselves with the challenges of digital cinema, live streaming and the like. In addition to the technical and organisational feat, the Wiesbaden-based festival also had to cope with the departure of several important sponsors and supporters. On the one hand, exground filmfest made itself fit for the digital future over these three years – but, on the other hand, it learned to appreciate the advantages of local in-person cinemas, which cannot be matched or counterbalanced by streaming platforms. That is why the organisational team’s credo remains (even more so after the experiences of the pandemic period): “Cinema first!” Nothing can replace the personal encounters between audience and film guests and the communal experience of films in cinemas.

In order to further sharpen the festival’s profile and make the program structure more transparent, the festival team decided to split the traditional “International” section into two series, “European Cinema” and “World Cinema”.

The non-profit association “Wiesbadener Kinofestival e. V.” has not only made its presence felt annually in November with exground filmfest. From 1997, the association organised an exground “half-time program”, featuring films grouped under thematic aspects such as food, water, horror, or the “summer of love”, as well as a “dance into May” party. In addition, since 1999 the festival team has been showing an exground film of the month every month at Caligari FilmBühne in Wiesbaden – and, starting in 2005, an exground youth film of the month (this series was discontinued in the summer of 2024). Furthermore, the film festival has been represented at Caligari FilmBühne for several years with the series “Film and Breakfast” and “Wiesbaden: Cinema City”.

exground filmfest is a member of the Association of Hessian Film Festivals and the Federal Association of the Working Group for Short Films, or AG Kurzfilm, as it is known in Germany – and since 2004 a member of the Wiesbaden Urban Culture Working Group. Back in June 2002, exground filmfest was accepted into the European Coordination of Film Festivals (ECFF) – the European representation for film festivals in Brussels, which was dissolved again in 2012. This membership enabled the festival to take advantage of ECFF’s film program services and intensify exchange and networking efforts with other European festivals. A positive side effect: exground filmfest now not only enjoys a stellar reputation in the Rhine-Main area, but also in Tokyo, Los Angeles and New York, where the film festival has maintained its own offices for years. “250 accredited industry guests in attendance shows how far the reputation of the exground festival has now spread internationally. But despite this expansion, as Rita Thies, Wiesbaden’s Head of Cultural Affairs, stated in her opening speech, exground has stayed true to its experimental roots.” (Filmecho/Filmwoche 48, November 2002).

Without the voluntary efforts of the approximately ten-member organisational team, but also without the innumerable volunteer helpers during the festival itself, the success story that is the history of exground filmfest would certainly have been unimaginable. Throughout all of those years, it has, of course, also been essential that a whole range of institutions and companies have supported the organisational team of exground filmfest with generous financial and/or material contributions. Foremost among these are the Cultural Office of the State Capital of Wiesbaden, the Hesse Film Trust (now Hessen Film & Medien GmbH) and the Hessian State Ministry for Higher Education, Research and the Arts (now the Hessian State Ministry of Science and Research, Art and Culture).

The festival centre is the heritage-protected Caligari FilmBühne in the heart of Wiesbaden, in the immediate vicinity of the market square and the Hessian state parliament, featuring an Art Deco theatre from cinema’s golden age capable of accommodating around 430 guests. A spacious foyer offers room for additional festival events, and a bar provides refreshments – ensuring that guests are more than happy to linger here for a while. The foyer of the Caligari FilmBühne hosts supporting events for exground filmfest, including panel discussions, readings, concerts, parties, lounges, special film screenings, video installations and exhibitions, which are regularly sold out.

In addition to the Caligari FilmBühne as the festival centre, the Kulturpalast (until 2018) and the Alpha Kino (until 2009) served as two further long-term venues for exground filmfest in the centre of Wiesbaden, providing a total of 200 seats. In 2009, the Murnau-Filmtheater with its 100 seats was added to the list of festival venues and subsequently officially established as a third primary venue for exground filmfest for the 23rd edition of the festival in 2010, alongside the Caligari FilmBühne and the Kulturpalast. And since 2019 film and other events have also been held in the Crypt of the Marktkirche, which creates a very special festival atmosphere and can seat around 60 people.

The increasing digitisation of cinema in recent years has led to a veritable proliferation of formats. As a result, it was not uncommon that a “film” first had to be painstakingly converted to a common screening format in order to be able to present it to an audience at all. The unstoppable trend towards digital formats prompted the festival team to open the German Short Film Competition to new playback formats, to rename the ON-VIDEO Competition (launched in 2002) as the International Short Film Competition and to make the requirements for submission formats narrower. However, the digital age also offers opportunities for exground filmfest. From 2006 onwards, filmmakers also had the option of submitting their films via the reelport internet platform: they uploaded – and exground downloaded. As a result, the number of submissions skyrocketed in the following years. And, in 2018, the procedure for film entries was further simplified: since then, filmmakers have been able to submit their short and feature-length works conveniently and exclusively via the website www.exground.com.

The flood of submissions of over 2,000 short and feature-length films per year presents the exground filmfest selection committee, which still works on a completely voluntary basis, with the immense challenge of filtering out the cream of the crop. However, thanks to their high level of expertise and experience, these skilful “truffle pigs” from Wiesbaden have thus far always managed to track down a few film gems, which then celebrated their cinema premieres at exground filmfest.

In order to be able to market these film gems via the increasingly important social media, the organisers of exground filmfest established a dedicated social media team in 2022. These experts for digital communication “feed” social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok with articles, posts and reels regularly, throughout the entire year, in order to win new friends for the festival – and to keep all interested parties up to date on the latest developments at exground filmfest.