Highly Explosive (2025)

The Hurt Locker

During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.

The Pier Man

Theo is a young docker languishing in his native port. His life flows at the monotonous rhythm of cargo ships passing by. Through his encounter with Giuseppe, a disillusioned sailor ashore for a while, Theo will gather the courage to face the waves to escape his dull existence by trying to get into Giuseppe's gruff crew.

Gigantic

The Hamburg friends Walter, Ricco and Floyd take each day as it comes between the estates of tower blocks and fast food restaurants. All three are in their early twenties and are dreaming of another life when Floyd suddenly takes a job on a freighter going to Singapore.

A Plea

A young girl is forced to reckon with the changing nature of her relationship

Night Shapes

The Pope is in town and the night of his stay is anything but heavenly for some of Berlin′s inhabitants. Rich and poor, down-and-outs and policemen, street kids and taxi drivers - in their search for a little bit of happiness, they all end up on an amusing and at times harrowing odyssey through the labyrinth of the big city.

My Name Is Loh Kiwan

After defecting from North Korea, Loh Kiwan struggles to obtain refugee status in Belgium, where he encounters a dejected woman who has lost all hope.

Turtles Can Fly

Turtles Can Fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iraq border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.

Tears of the Sun

Navy SEAL Lieutenant A.K. Waters and his elite squadron of tactical specialists are forced to choose between their duty and their humanity, between following orders by ignoring the conflict that surrounds them, or finding the courage to follow their conscience and protect a group of innocent refugees. When the democratic government of Nigeria collapses and the country is taken over by a ruthless military dictator, Waters, a fiercely loyal and hardened veteran is dispatched on a routine mission to retrieve a Doctors Without Borders physician.

Chiko

This is the story of Isa, who grows up in a Hamburg suburb. It might be one of the world's richest cities but every beast has its belly and here, in the very underbelly, Chiko lives in a world where violence, staking and keeping a claim, and drug taking are the norm. Where down is not an option, Chiko is determined to rise to the top, whatever and whomever it costs.

Dogville

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.

Grand Illusion

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

St. Louis

Hamburg, Germany, 1939. Getting a passage aboard the passenger liner St. Louis seems to be the last hope of salvation for more than nine hundred German Jews who, desperate to escape the atrocious persecution to which they are subjected by the Nazi regime, intend to emigrate to Cuba.

Head-On

With the intention to break free from the strict familial restrictions, a suicidal young woman sets up a marriage of convenience with a forty-year-old addict, an act that will lead to an outburst of envious love.

Port of Desire

Pierre is in Hamburg on a merchant ship with his friends Georges and Jean-Marie. While they are just looking for a good time in the twenty-four hours they have to waste in the city, Pierre is seized by the memory of a young German girl, Maria, whom he had known and probably loved when he was a prisoner of war in the bombed-out port of Hamburg. He abandons his companions in search of her, but is unable to trace her, her house having been destroyed and the search services having no record of her.

Short Sharp Shock

Gabriel, Bobby and Costa are old friends from Altona, a multicultural hood in Hamburg. Just out of prison, Gabriel wants to turn his back on crime, but the others continue to operate as petty criminals. Friendships are tested as the trio navigate a dark world of mafia bosses and deals gone wrong.

Neon Boys

Unable to find a job after spending time in prison, Shawn takes work as an erotic dancer to support his daughter and falls in love with a man for the first time.

Outerlands

Cass juggles jobs as a nanny, restaurant server, and party drug dealer in order to make ends meet and pay for their tiny San Francisco apartment. After a one night stand with Kalli, a co-worker they have a crush on, Cass agrees to watch her 11-year-old daughter, Ari, while she goes out of town. But as days pass without word from Kalli, Cass and Ari form a bond that spirals Cass back to their own difficult childhood and the pain they’ve been running from.

Sounds of Sand

On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.

Erbsen auf halb 6

It all starts with a bang. The car breaks through the crash barrier and falls off the bridge. The lights go out. After that, he is not able to see anymore. His optic nerve is severed, from now on the young stage-director Jakob is blind. His life will change and nothing will ever be the same. Jakob cannot handle the idea of never being able to see again and screams at the only woman who is able and willing to help him, Lily. A rehabilitation teacher, she helps the blind deal with the darkness. Lily has been living with it since birth, she too is blind.

The American Friend

Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.

Can I Just Tell You?

After a few weeks of dating, Izzy wants to avow her feelings to her girlfriend Mabel for the first time, but this proves to be harder than expected...

Totally F***ed Up

Gay, alienated Los Angeles teens have a hard time as their parents kick them out of their homes, they don’t have money, their lovers cheat, and they are harassed by gay-bashers.

Misericordia

Jérémie returns to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. He decides to stay for a few days with Martine, the man's widow. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbor and a priest with strange intentions make Jérémie's short stay in the village take an unexpected turn.

Sweetness in the Belly

Orphaned in Africa as a child, Lilly escapes to England as a refugee, fleeing civil war in Ethiopia. Lost in this cold new world, Lilly embraces the immigrant community in London, attempting to reunite people with their scattered families. But as her friend Amina discovers, Lilly's mission isn't purely selfless: a passionate lost love affair is revealed.

The Truce

After the liberation of Auschwitz, an Italian prisoner of War begins a torturous voyage home to Turin, through a Europe caught between war and peace.

Donner Party 2

A group of close friends take a trip to a snowy cabin for the winter. Drinks are spilled, lessons are learned, and memories are cultivated as the three day party comes unraveled.

Bye Bye Love

Two young people undertake a doomed summer road trip through Japan, which in turn reflects on the dissipating promise of 1960s counterculture and free love.

Any Day Now

Bahman, Mahtab, Ramin and Donya Mehdipour are enjoying a perfect summer in a small Finnish town. Their routines are fractured by a negative decision on their application for asylum by the Finnish Immigration Service. But life must go on and the 13-year-old Ramin is about to enter an entirely new school, junior high. The Mehdipours use their last chance to appeal but continue their everyday lives, fuelled by their exceptionally positive outlook and attitude.

Curveball

Although he already has searched Iraq unsuccessfully for weapons of mass destruction as a member of a UN mission, German bio-weapons expert Arndt Wolf is still obsessed with the idea that Saddam Hussein is hiding something. Nobody around him is interested in this topic any more. This changes abruptly when an Iraqi asylum seeker claims to have been involved in the manufacture of chemical weapons. The German Federal Intelligence Service summons Dr. Wolf to ascertain the legitimacy of the claims made by the informant, who has been given the code name “Curveball”.

Lakeview

A queer ensemble comedy set over a weekend at the lake house of a group of lifelong friends

Locked In

Samira and Nazim, asylum seekers who fled after torture find themselves in the UK again detained by the state. They are on the fast track system, soon to be deported. With the clock ticking, the memories of their torture and what awaits on their return torment them. Will they be able to gain asylum in time? What will the cost be to their relationship?

The Lawyer

Marius is a highly successful lawyer based in Vilnius. He becomes obsessed with Ali, a handsome Syrian refugee he first encounters in an online chatroom run out of Belgrade. Marius is rich and enjoys a vibrant social and cultural life. Nevertheless, he feels that something is missing from it. The journey from Lithuania to Serbia is a relatively short one, but can the two navigate their way through the gulf that separates their very different lives? And how do they deal with the precarious obstacles of the physical borders that stand between them? Written and directed by Romas Zabarauskas, The Lawyer questions assumptions about what it means to be an immigrant and the possibilities offered by life in contemporary Europe.

Kandahar

After an Afghanistan-born woman who lives in Canada receives a letter from her suicidal sister, she takes a perilous journey through Afghanistan to try to find her.

More

Gaza is a 14-year-old boy who lives on the Aegean coast of Turkey. Together with his domineering father, he helps smuggle refugees from war-torn countries to Europe, giving them temporary lodgings and scant food until they attempt the crossing. Gaza dreams of escaping this life, but can't help being drawn into a dark world of immorality, exploitation and human suffering. Can you avoid becoming a monster when you've been raised by one? Onur Saylak's debut feature, adapted from the award-winning novel of the same title by Hakan Günday, one of the first novels to document the refugee crisis in Europe, "More" is the gripping story of a boy that gets to grow up in a world where there's no room for innocence.

Unwanted

A lonely boy, who lives in Amsterdam with his refugee mother from Kosovo, keeps getting into trouble while yearning for her acceptance. But the traumas caused by the war, which his mother hides away from him, turn his world upside down.

Fairview Park

Declan Flynn, a man struggling for self-acceptance, is preyed upon by a gang of self-described ‘Queer-bashers’ in Dublin, 1982. Based on the true story seen as a major catalyst for Ireland’s LGBTQ Pride movement.

Blood Alley

An American Merchant Marine captain, rescued from a Chinese Communist jail by local villagers, is "shanghaied" into transporting the entire village to Hong Kong on an ancient paddle steamer.

Nordsee ist Mordsee

14-year-old Uwe lives in a suburban Hamburg housing estate. Besides trouble, the boy has not much to expect from his parents. To get his hands on some money, he prizes open vending machines, and to let out his frustration, he beats up "wogs". Among them is Dschingis, his nemesis. But one day, the rivals make peace. They become friends because they realize that they have the same problems and are driven by the same dreams and hopes.

Aïssa

Aïssa is a Congolese immigrant in France. She says that she is under eighteen but the authorities consider her an adult. To determine if she can be deported, a doctor must give her a physical examination.

The New Country

A 15-year-old Somalian boy meets a 40-year-old Iranian man in a refugee camp in Skåne, in the south of Sweden. With the threat of deportation hanging over them, they decide to take their faiths in their own hands and together they go on a journey in the Swedish summer.

Natchathiram Nagargiradhu

Love and politics collide when modern day individuals working as theatre artists in fall in love while making a play about love. They realize that it's the social structure that determines their values and thoughts, and for their love to succeed, they have to go against it.