Unexpected humour and reflections on a complex past: my top 5 films from the 2025 German Film Festival

Foreign audiences often associate German cinema with tragedy, trauma and death. Certainly, major historical events such as the second world war and the Fall of the Berlin Wall — cornerstones of German film — are present in this year’s selection at the 2025 German Film Festival.

Alongside these themes is a variety of contemporary topics, innovative fictional formats and strong documentary work. The increased presence of women in directing and producing roles also brings female experiences sharply into focus.

Here are my highlights from this year’s programme.

Riefenstahl (2024)

Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003), Hitler’s favourite filmmaker, has been a subject of controversy for decades – explored in documentaries such as The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993).

Now, with access to new material from Riefenstahls’ private archive, director Andres Veiel and journalist Sandra Maischberger cast a fresh eye over this complex figure.

Using extensive visual materials, they trace Riefenstahl’s journey from dancer to actress, to filmmaker and photographer – capturing everything from her pioneering cinematic techniques to her entanglement with political power and personal vanity. And they are not afraid to confront uncomfortable aspects of her past.

Her claim to have endured an unwanted romantic pursuit by Nazi minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels (first made in her 1987 memoir) appears in new light as an older Riefenstahl faces questioning from aggressive TV interviewers. She unflinchingly and fiercely maintains her version of events.

Is Leni Riefenstahl a creative genius, a political victim, or an ignorant perpetrator? This film invites audiences to grapple with this old question anew — and perhaps come to their own conclusion.

Montages depict Riefenstahl’s life from youth to old age, culminating in an image of an elderly lady who, even late in life, manipulates camera angles and lighting to ensure a more flattering appearance.

Two to One (2024)

Some German films such as Balloon (2018) or The Last Execution (2022) have a tendency to explore East Germans as either victims of oppression, or complicit with the regime of the German Democratic Republic.

But there are also films that rebel against such simplification – such as Beauty and Decay (2019), Dear Thomas (2021) and Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything (2023) – to powerfully present the many dimensions of former East Germany and its people.

Among them is Two to One, a thoughtful picture by director Nadja Brunckhorst, which fluctuates between thriller, comedy and melodrama. Based on a true story, this film remembers the delirious time between the Fall of the Berlin Wall and Reunification.

It is July 1990, and just days after the deadline for exchanging East German marks to more valued West German marks at the exchange rate of 2:1. This halved the life savings of many East Germans.

We follow a Hausgemeinschaft (community of renters) who discover millions of East German mark bills in an underground bunker. They cleverly use the more privileged members of their old and new worlds – sleek Western sales representatives and former East German diplomats – to transform the worthless bills into West mark and buy goods for everyone.

Two to One stars Ronald Zehrfeld (also in the festival opener Long Story Short), Sandra Hueller and Peter Kurth in top form.

Dying (2024)

As a contender in the 2024 Berlin Film Festival (where it won best screenplay), and winner of the 2024 German Film Award, Dying comes highly recommended.

Versatile German actor Lars Eidinger is cast as Tom, a youth orchestra conductor trying to pull off his best friend’s composition “Dying”. Not only does the performance never please the composer, his private world is also a mess.

Tom is raising someone else’s child. His father (Hans-Uwe Bauer) suffers dementia. His sister Ellen (Lilith Stangenberg) can’t keep up with the expectations of their estranged parents. And his mother’s (Corinna Harfouch) thinly veiled contempt for her own son is visible in a breathtaking scene involving the seemingly innocent ritual of coffee and cake.

But despite its weighty subject matter, humour appears in the most unexpected places.

There is Ellen’s affair with her boss, a dentist, who ends up drunk in a bar — where she pulls one of his teeth. There is also the quietly absurd scene of her ageing parents trying to drive home from the supermarket: one nearly blind, the other unable to remember where they live.

A film that uses absurdity and tenderness to break through emotional tension with surprising charm, Dying is a must see.

I Want It All (2025)

Singer and actress Hildegard Knef would have turned 100 this year.

Knef was one of the most prominent and daring post-WWII West German female artists. Driven from a young age to become successful, she began her career in the 1946 rubble film, The Murderers Are Among Us.

In her 2025 documentary I Want It All, director Luzia Schmidt captures Knef in rehearsals, at home, in the recording studio and through press photos. The film is a vivid portrait of an unapologetic woman constantly under scrutiny, as the German public seemed entitled to access every corner of her life.

Knef comes across as sharp but self-aware. The artist discusses her stage fright and the art of holding an audience’s attention. Her candid remarks about undergoing plastic surgery, as a female artist navigating the ruthless entertainment industry, remain just as relevant today.

Arguably the greatest assets of the film are the reflective comments from Knef’s daughter, Tinta, who speaks with empathy and kindness about her mother’s ambition and vulnerabilities.

I Want It All is a treat for anyone who is familiar with Knef, and for those who want to know more about this grand dame of German culture.

Cicadas (2025)

An idyllic countryside in summer: a paradise retreat for some, and a prison for others.

Isabell is the daughter of an architect, who is paralysed by a stroke. His beautifully designed house is in disrepair and no one can pay for it, but Isabell can’t get him to sell it. Meanwhile, Isabell’s marriage to her needy French husband Philippe is strained by a shared trauma.

Anja, a single mum to young Greta, navigates a fragile existence. In a region with weak infrastructure, she moves between low-paying jobs, barely making ends meet.

When the two women meet, their bond forms cautiously. Both are shaped by differences in class, age and life experience, yet there is a connection that bridges these divides.

Carried by compelling performances by Saskia Rosenthal and Nina Hoss (the latter of whom had worked with director Ina Weisse in The Audition (2019)), Cicadas is a quiet drama about vulnerability and loss of control that evolves in the open landscapes of the Brandenburg region.