Highly Explosive (2025)

High Tension

A happy couple celebrates their six-month anniversary, wrapped in the illusion of a perfect love. But as the night unfolds, buried truths resurface, forcing them to confront whether their relationship is built to last or just a beautiful lie.

Tscherwonez

A Soviet sailor travels to the West for the first time. In Hamburg, he hopes to find his missing brother. But German secret service agents, inquisitive reporters and even his own countrymen are hot on his heels.

In Another Life

Our once beautiful homeland had become uninhabitable. Too dangerous to walk the streets, drive a car, visit friends. Many had already left Syria. Risking their lives on the open water. Giving all we had to the ruthless, opportunists who trade in the currency of human misery. We all spent what little money we had to reach anywhere, a safe place, a new life away from the bloodshed, the bombing, the murder. Europe was meant to offer us hope. Yet the borders closed one by one. We gave up everything, left all we had behind. Living on hand outs, with no shelter, no money and now no hope. I am here, trapped in Calais Jungle. I don’t know where my wife is. The police treat us like animals. They beat us and spray us with teargas everyday. We cannot move forward, we cannot go back. We have to get out of here. I look into the eyes on this camp and I can see it; The blank emptiness of desperation. In another life I was a teacher. Now I’m a refugee. My name is Adnan.

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.

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.

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.

Skeleton Kids

Three outcast queer teens runaway from society.

No Heaven, But Love.

1999— The Age of Apocalypse, where violence was rampant. In those days, nothing was easy. A story about the love and friendship of girls, which was hotter than any other summer... Joo-young and Ye-ji’s relationship is tender but ultimately feels like an impossible one.

The Refugee

A Chinese medical student named Gan Shosho finds himself cut off from his homeland as he is studying in Japan during the outbreak of the war. Despite his difficult circumstances, he finds love in the form of Sachiko and the two marry. They later travel to Nanjing to live a new life together where Sachiko and Shaochang cooperate with the Japanese-backed government. Their ultimate hope is to secure peace but their idealism is not enough to keep them together through brutal times and with the end of the war the two find themselves facing a divorce... --Osaka Asian Film Festival

Hotel Rwanda

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

A Ponte das Artes

Anna tells her girlfriend about the time she tried to read The Magic Mountain.

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.

Eight Miles High

Achim Bornhak's movie focuses on the restless life of Uschi Obermaier, the icon of the 1968 movement in Germany and groupie. At the age of 16, Uschi is bored by her job in a photo lab, but soon becomes the "it girl" of Munich's club scene. When she gets to know Rainer Langhans, they move to Berlin and live in "Kommune 1", the first politically-motivated commune in Germany. While the other occupants claim she isn't political enough, Uschi just wants to have fun, works as fashion model and leads international music stars in temptation.

Eyeshadow

Mirna and Pablo start a friendship framed in reflections about identity, loneliness and death during the 90's in Chile. A story about fellowship and HIV/AIDS, inspired by the literary work of Pedro Lemebel.

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.

Eggshells

Created in response to a traumatic hate crime, artist, Venus Patel, explores her emotional journey through several archetypes, each of whom perform with an egg. Using the weapon of the assailant, the egg itself becomes a tool with many psychological and symbolic meanings within it. The power of reincarnation, birth, nature, hope while also pointing to the power it has to utterly humiliate and embarrass if used in a certain way. There is an embrace of the absurdity of these performances while still speaking to the deeper subject matter. By placing the outlandish characters into public spaces, they confront a preconceived notion of pushing true queer expression into only hidden spaces or only at night, into the daylight and into the normal everyday experience.

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

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.

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.

Breakup in 9 Scenes

This is our documentary, it is about you and me. One day after you disappeared, after you sent that break-up message, I made you this video letter. A day after the military took power. In a matter of a day, you and I lost us, and we all lost a revolution. I am not angry, I am disappointed. But how does one live disappointment? What is the physical action associated with disappointment? Anger is much easier. Sadness is much easier. Hatred is the easiest. But I don’t hate you. You are too innocent to hate. We were too innocent to win. It is life.

Dearborn Ash

It's Ramadan in Dearborn, Michigan. Suffering from acute anxiety, Roshan meets up with a friend, only to find her plans for the night completely disrupted.

Woman of the Year

Rival reporters Sam Craig and Tess Harding fall in love and get married, only to find their relationship strained when Sam comes to resent Tess' hectic lifestyle.

No Time For Goodbye

The lives of two asylum seekers fleeing post-social unrest in their home city intertwine in Britain, starting a romance that tests their resilience and adversity.

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.

Meet Me Again

During a night out, Álmos, a queer teenager, discovers that his partner and friend have been lying to him. What begins as a painful experience soon turns into a journey of self-discovery, leading him to reconnect with a part of himself he thought was lost.

Open Cage

Anna, a young photojournalist from Berlin, travels to Serbia to make a photo documentary about refugees. Upon her arrival to Belgrade, Serbia's capital, Anna finds out that she can't go about her task the way she had planned. Through the cabdriver Dzeki, she meets the distrustful but interesting young refugee Maja who works at a nearby fast food restaurant. Miserable with her life in Serbia, Maja dreams of a new beginning somewhere abroad. In an attempt to successfully finish her project, Anna starts photographing Maja, secretly making a documentary about her. Blinded by the wish to change her life, Maja doesn't realize Anna's true intentions.

Casi divas

Four ambitious and beautiful young women. From four very different corners of Mexico. Just like hundreds of others, they are caught up in the frenzy that sweeps the nation when Alejandro Mateos, one of the country's most powerful producers, dreams up a nationwide talent search to cast the lead in his next big movie. But all this is news to Alejandro's on-again, off-again lover, Eva Gallardo, a diva of epic proportions, who expected to get the part. While Eva schemes to nail down the role, our four leads begin their own journey on the road to fame.

The Day After

In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.

Os Santos

Kaio just wanted a night of sex with Eduardo, a guy he just met on a dating app. But strange things happen when the Santos family shows up unannounced and prepares a special feast for the two of them.

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 Bourne Identity

Wounded to the brink of death and suffering from amnesia, Jason Bourne is rescued at sea by a fisherman. With nothing to go on but a Swiss bank account number, he starts to reconstruct his life, but finds that many people he encounters want him dead. However, Bourne realizes that he has the combat and mental skills of a world-class spy—but who does he work for?

Welcome

Bilal is 17 years old, a Kurdish boy from Iraq. He sets off on an adventure-filled journey across Europe. He wants to get to England to see his love who lives there. Bilal finally reaches Calais, but how do you cover 32 kilometers of the English Channel when you can't swim? The boy soon discovers that his trip won't be as easy as he imagined... The community of struggling illegal aliens in Calais

That Which Once Was

In 2032 an eight-year old boy, displaced by global warming, fends for himself as an environmental refugee in a hostile northern metropolis. Haunted by memories of flooding that left him homeless and orphaned, the boy forms an unexpected friendship with an Inuk ice carver who helps him confront his past.