Hof International Film Festival


The Hof International Filmfestival is a German film festival that takes place in Hof, Bavaria, every year in October. Apart from numerous foreign productions, the main focus traditionally is on German films. During six festival days, about 130 films are shown in 8 theaters of 2 cinema centers, adding up to a total of 200 individual film presentations. With the exception of the retrospective, all films are German or world premieres.
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History

Initiators of the festival were Heinz Badewitz and Uwe Brandner, who were also members of the Hof "New Jazz Group", together with the artist Werner Weinelt, who later on relocated his art gallery to the pub "Galeriehaus" in Hof. Badewitz, festival director until his death in 2016, and Brandner, had moved to Munich in 1963 where they made short films together. However, they had problems to find a cinema for their film presentations in Munich. Without further ado, Badewitz, who was born in Hof and knew the local cinema operators quite well, and Brandner decided to stage their films in the small town in Upper Franconia. Thus, a Hof short film festival came into existence in 1967 with an overall program duration of not more than 2,5 hours.
In 1968, Badewitz was invited to take part in the German competition of the Oberhausen short film festival with his 2nd short film. The scandal surrounding Hellmuth Costard's contribution film "Besonders Wertvoll" was to lead the film makers to Hof, since they had withdrawn their works from the Oberhausen festival in protest – the starting signal for the 2nd Hof International Film Festival in 1968. Initially, the "Hofer Filmtage" were a mere audience-focused festival without any kind of competitions or awards. The festival rapidly developed into the main annual meeting point for the "Jungfilmer", the makers of the New German Cinema. Many upcoming directors present their debut films in Hof and maintain friendly connections with the festival for years. During the 25th anniversary festival in 1991, Wim Wenders shapes the term of "Hof – Home of Films". The motto of the festival originates from Heinz Badewitz himself: "We don't need stars – we create them."
In 1984, the horror movie Nightmare on Elm Street with the film figure Freddy Krueger has its world premiere at the International Hof Film Festival. Apart from that, director George A. Romero presents the world premiere of his horror movie Zombie – Dawn of the Dead at the filmfestival in Northern Bavaria.
During the preparations for the 50th anniversary festival in 2016, Heinz Badewitz passed away completely unexpectedly. The festival, however, took place as usual in the last week of October. It was organized by the festival team and many highly motivated volunteers. Curators of the film program were Linda Söffker, Alfred Holighaus and Thorsten Schaumann.
Since the 51st International Hof Film Festival in 2017, Thorsten Schaumann has been the artistic director of the event. He initiated the format of HoF PLUS that accompanies the festival with panel discussions about current issues of the film business. He also fathered the HoF RENDEZVOUS, a format that features presentations of films from the previous festival throughout the following year.
From 2018-2020, a cooperation with the International Film Festival Karlovy Vary took place presenting the European Film Promotion's Future Frames showcase.
A traditional side event of the festival is the soccer game FC Filmwelt Hof vs. FC Hofer Filmtage that takes place on each year's festival Saturday. Every year a team of actors, directors and producers play against a team of eleven players from the festival organisation and festival supporters.

Festival 2020

The pandemic situation made it necessary to plan a hybrid festival, so that all films were also available online through the HoF-On-Demand streaming platform, restricted to Germany. With respect to reduced admission capacities, four additional venues were used for theatrical screenings. The hybrid format with streaming of most of the films during the physical edition of the festival and the following week was continued in 2021 and 2022.

Films

The festival covers the almost full spectrum of non-mainstream movies, the main focus being on films of German origin. Especially debut works from German film schools account for a large part of the program. However, the festival provides a showcase for non-domestic productions, too. Movies from all over Europe, the US, Australia and New Zealand, only to mention a few, are being shown. Out of 2,000-2,500 submissions, a selection of about 80 feature and documentary films as well as about 50 short films sum up to a total of about 130 approved program movies. In general, short films are screened together with longer films.

Festival guests

Since the first festival in 1967, many directors and actors have been present at the festival in person, gladly answering questions from the audience or taking part in the many discussion panels around the festival. Many of the film makers and actors have sustainably succeeded in the domestic and international film industry after their first appearance in Hof. These include:

Retrospective

Every year, a retrospective is dedicated to exceptional movie directors. The festival program features a section of the respective director's lifework. Traditionally, the artist is present at the festival in person, taking part in several discussion panels. Previous retrospectives:

Festival awards

Förderpreis Neues Deutsches Kino - Advancement Award New German CinemaFilmpreis der Stadt Hof - Film Award of the City HofHofer Goldpreis - Hof Gold AwardVGF Young Producers AwardHans Vogt Movie AwardGranite Award -
  • ''Bild-Kunst Advancement Award''

Awards no longer awarded

German Film Promotion Prize
  • ''Eastman Award for Young Talent''