Get set for the 2026 HSBC German Film Festival which opens around Australia tomorrow with a great line-up of contemporary cinema, including a selection direct from this year’s Berlinale.
With a program encompassing everything from gripping true stories to delightful family films, comedy and powerful new drama, the festival screens nationally from May 6 to 27 at Palace Cinemas, Palace Nova and Luna Palace Cinemas.
Opening this year’s festival is the comedy Berlin Hero, from much-loved director Wolfgang Becker, who also made Good Bye, Lenin! Becker’s final film about an unwitting GDR hero revealed 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is adapted from the 2022 novel by Maxim Leo.
Closing the festival and celebrating its 45th anniversary is Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot – Director’s Cut, screening in 4K nationally and 35mm exclusively at The Astor Theatre in Melbourne. The landmark anti-war epic plunges viewers into the claustrophobic ordeal of a U-boat crew, sustaining extraordinary tension with physical realism, moral gravity, and devastating force.
Foodies are sure to be interested in Hello Betty, which follows the true story of Emmi Creola, a talented copywriter who in 1956 defies a male dominated workplace by inventing “Betty Bossi”, afictional housewife who becomes Switzerland’s culinary icon and in turn, a Swiss cultural phenomenon. As Betty’s popularity skyrockets, Emmi struggles to balance the expectations of her public persona with her role as a wife, mother and professional.
Among the three films from the 2026 Berlinale is Prosecution, which won the 2026 Berlinale Audience Award. It follows a self-assured young German-Korean state prosecutor who takes her own case to court, confronting the perpetrators and a justice system that turns a blind eye to far-right extremism.
Set in provincial eastern Germany, Home Stories is a poignant exploration of inter-generational tensions. When 16-year-old Lea auditions for a TV talent show, an identity crisis rises to the surface, and she must decide who she is and what home story she can create from her family’s history.
Four Minus Three, based on a true story and a bestselling novel, is a moving drama from Austria featuring an outstanding lead performance from Valerie Pachner as Barbara, aprofessional entertainer forced to face an unspeakable loss.
From acclaimed director Ulrich Köhler, Gavagai is a fascinating exploration of identity, privilege and power dynamics. This meta cinematic drama is about a film adaptation of Medea being shot in Senegal, where the lead actors seek solace in a romance amidst a strained environment on set, then reunite at the film’s premiere in Berlin only to find tensions resurfacing.
A standout in the New German Cinema selection is compelling courtroom drama Karla, based on the true story of a landmark case in Germany. Set in Munich in 1962, twelve-year-old Karla runs away from her family to bring forward serious accusations against her own father. The story is told with great sensitivity and emotional precision by debut director Christina Tournatzés, who will be a special guest of the festival and appearing at selected sessions.
This year’s festival Centrepiece is Amrum, a poignant drama about hardworking Nanning, a 12-year-old boy who lives on Amrum Island during the final days of World War 2. Life on the beautiful, windswept island almost feels like paradise but in the shadows a deeper threat is revealed: the enemy is far closer than he imagined.
In celebration of the premiere of Fatih Akin’s Amrum, a selection of three of the director’s previous films will be screened: Head-On, The Edge of Heaven, and Goodbye Berlin.
This year’s Special Presentation is Cannes Film Festival Jury Award winner Sound of Falling, a haunting drama which follows four girls across four generations experiencing their youth on the same farm in northern Germany. It was Germany’s entry in this year’s Academy Awards.
Also featuring in the New German Cinema selection is 22 Laps, a coming-of-age drama which explores the unbreakable bond between two sisters growing up in a small town.
From Switzerland comes I’m Not Stiller, a mystery thriller starring festival favourite Albrecht Schuch. Based on the classic novel by Max Frisch, an American man is mistaken for a Swiss sculptor and arrested for his role in a dubious political affair in 1950s Switzerland.
For a complete list of films being screened at the German Film Festival, and to book tickets, visit the festival website here.
