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EXCLUSIVE: German Films, the agency that promotes German cinema globally, has revealed the seven participants for its annual Face to Face campaign, which include talents who have worked on projects such as Unorthodox, We Children From Bahnhof Zoo and Tides.
This year, which marks the 10th anniversary of the Face to Face initiative, will see German Films introduce seven burgeoning talents from the German film and TV industry to the international film community at the Berlin Film Festival next month. The initiative has long been considered a significant platform for showcasing German talents to the wider film and television spheres.
This year’s selection includes actors Aaron Altaras, Lea Drinda and Thea Ehre, writer-directors Leonie Krippendorff and Mariko Minoguchi, as well as director Mala Reinhardt and Director of Photography Tim Kuhn.
They are following in the footsteps of filmmakers and stars Sandra Hüller, Christian Friedel, Burhan Qurbani, Saskia Rosendahl, Alexander Fehling, Julia Jentsch, Jonas Nay, Jannis Niewöhner, Sara Fazilat, Soleen Yousef and Eva Trobisch, who have all been part of the campaign since it launched in 2016.
This year’s campaign will kick off with a Deadline Virtual Event on February 5, where Deadline sits down with four of the participants – Altaras, Ehre, Reinhardt and Krippendorff – to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the German film and television industries today.
The seven talents will then take part at a panel event organized by German Films during the Berlin Film Festival on February 17.
German actor Altaras began his acting career with a role in Nicht alle waren Mörder before starring Netflix’s international hit Unorthodox, in which he played a music student who shows modern Berlin to an orthodox Jewish woman searching for freedom. Further credits include Disney+ series The Interpreter of Silence, The Night Between Us and Cannes Series Award-winning show Die Zweiflers, for which he won the German Television Award and the Blue Panther in the “Best Actor” category. His next films will be Why Me and Rave.
Drinda became known to a wider audience in 2021 with her first major role in We Children From Bahnhof Zoo. She was nominated for the German Acting Award (Best Newcomer) in the same year. She received several awards for her role in the series Becoming Charlie, in which she played the first non-binary character on German television. She’s had further roles in projects such as Nachts im Paradies, which was released on Canal+, City of Blood for Disney+ and Where is Wanda? for Apple TV+.
Austrian actress Ehre landed first role in the 2018 television series Vorstadtweiber. In 2022, she portrayed Leni Malinowski, a transgender woman navigating a complex world of love and investigations in Christoph Hochhäusler’s genre thriller Till the End of the Night. She received the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the 2023 Berlinale for her performance. Ehre actively advocates for the representation of transgender individuals, both in her public persona and through her work in film and theatre. She can next be seen in Tom Tykwer’s Light, which opens the Berlin Film Festival next month.
Minoguchi’s feature film debut Relativity received the German Film Critics’ Award for Best Debut Film and Best Screenplay, among others. Together with director Tim Fehlbaum, she wrote the screenplay for his film Tides, which premiered in Berlinale while also reaching number one in the U.S. Netflix chart. Further credits include Zeit Verbrechen and upcoming feature film Die Andere Seite. She’s a partner at the Munich-based production company Trimafilm.
Kuhn’s credits include series Hindafing, which won the Romy Award in the Best TV Series category, as well as Breaking Even and Luden, for which he received the German Camera Award. He also shot Happy Holidays with Oscar-nominated Palestinian director Scandar Copti and worked on the film adaptation of the bestselling novel 22 Bahnen.
Reinhardt’s documentary The Second Attack premiered at DOK Leipzig in 2018 as part of the German Competition, where it earned an honorable mention. It later featured at the Berlin Film Festival in 2021. Last year, she directed and produced her feature-length doc Familiar Places which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. She is currently researching for her next project Mother/Tongue, a hybrid film that will explore the intricate connections between language, migration and colonial politics.
Director and author Krippendorff’s graduation film Looping was shortlisted for the German Film Award 2019 and nominated at Guadalajara International Film Festival, for the Jupiter Award and the Max Ophüls Prize, among others. Her second feature film Cocoon was selected as the opening film of the Generation 14plus competition at the Berlinale 2020. In 2021, she directed and co-wrote German mini-series Loving Her about lesbian love. She recently wrapped shooting feature film Peeled Skin, which will be released in 2025.
“We have a vibrant and diverse film scene in Germany,” said German Films MD Simone Baumann. “This diversity and creativity naturally thrives on its filmmakers. We have talents in all the different trades who are always coming up with new ideas, who are curious, who are constantly rethinking and redesigning the medium of film and cinema. At German Films, we see it as our duty to support these talents from the German film industry and to accompany them on their way to becoming successful filmmakers. We are proud to be able to present seven filmmakers as ambassadors for our campaign this year, who are emblematic of innovation in the film industry.”
