Dear audience, dear festival team,

What began in 1990 as an initiative by a few film enthusiasts has developed into an internationally renowned festival – and a popular gathering place for the film industry at home and abroad. In addition to recognition and gratitude for this achievement, the organisational team also deserves our support. I am therefore delighted that the state’s funding through Hessen Film & Medien GmbH has been more than doubled over the past five years.

The organisational team has once again managed to bring brilliant independent cinema productions to Wiesbaden for the 37th edition of the festival: around 200 short and feature-length films will be screened in the “American Independents”, “Made in Germany”, “European and World Cinema” sections as well as in short film programmes and competitions, including numerous world and other premieres. The Country Focus has been replaced by a thematic focus for the first time: in 2024, the focus will be on films about “flight and expulsion”. A new competition is also celebrating its premiere in this context: the “Amnesty International Wiesbaden Film Award”.

Traditionally, exground filmfest’s cinematic gaze roves away from a Eurocentric focus towards America, Oceania, Africa and the Middle and Far East. But Hessian film is not neglected either. I am particularly pleased that the social drama FRISCH, directed by Damian John Harper and co-produced by Hessen Film & Medien, will be in the running for the DAS BRETT award for the best German feature film in the “Made in Germany” series. Equally well worth seeing are the entries from RheinMain University of Applied Sciences Wiesbaden for the Wiesbaden Special – Short Film Competition.

I wish the audience and the approximately 100 film guests from all over the world a spectacular time in the cinema and the organisational team a successful festival.

Timon Gremmels
Hessian State Minister for Science and Research, Arts and Culture