Dear cinema fans, dear organisational team,

This year, exground filmfest is moving away from its annual focus on the filmmaking of a single country and devoting itself to the topic of “flight and expulsion”. In recent years, the Country Focus had increasingly been dedicated to drawing attention to independent filmmaking in countries with rising right-wing populism and ascendent authoritarian structures – for example Iran, Turkey, Brazil, the Philippines, the USA and Italy. The 37th edition is now presenting select short and feature-length films from all over the world and grappling, in fiction, documentary and experimental film formats, with the complex causes and consequences of flight and expulsion: with climate change, wars, famine, human rights violations, the absence of the rule of law, police violence, persecution, neo-colonial exploitation and a lack of economic prospects. We ourselves have also suddenly been developing strange images of the enemy. The coming together of international filmmakers and the audience in Wiesbaden is intended to facilitate a collective dialogue on difficult, complex but extremely urgent issues. In addition, a five-member jury will honour one of the films in the thematic focus “Flight and Expulsion” with the newly created “Amnesty International Wiesbaden Film Award”.

As in the past, the film program, which will also once again be featured in cinemas in Frankfurt am Main as well as Wiesbaden, will be supplemented by an extensive accompanying program. In addition to video art at Nassauischer Kunstverein, interested parties can attend a reading – or a panel discussion, a report on civilian sea rescue and the exhibition “Look at Me – Face of Flight” at Murnau-Filmtheater.

I wish the exground film audience cinema experiences with a sustained impact and insightful discussions – and the visiting filmmakers from the thematic focus a wonderful stay in our region.

Karin Wolff
CEO of Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain