Lovely Day

Source: micro_scope

Lovely Day

Canadian director Philippe Falardeau’s wedding movie Lovely Day and Japanese filmmaker Hikari’s comedy drama Rental Family will bookend Malika Rabahallah’s second edition as director of the Filmfest Hamburg, which runs from September 25 - October 4.

Falardeau will be accompanied by his lead actors Neil Elias and Rose-Marie Perreault for Lovely Day’s European premiere in Hamburg on September 25 following its world premiere in Toronto. The film is billed as a playful but poignant deconstruction of the wedding movie.

This will be the third time Falardeau has a film screening in Hamburg’s programme: Monsieur Lazahr was the Filmfest’s closing film in 2011 and My Internship In Canada was shown there in 2015.

Meanwhile, Hikari’s film, which stars Brendan Fraser as a US actor working as a stand-in for a Japanese “rental family” agency, will close Hamburg after its world premiere last weekend in Toronto’s Special Presentations section.

2025 selection

Rabahallah and her team of programmers have put together a programme of 118 films from 55 countries, including five world premieres ranging from Hille Norden’s debut feature Smalltown Girl through Nicolai Zeitler and Marlene Bischof’s anthology film I Am The Greatest to Sheri Hagen’s dramedy Billie.

The Filmfest’s 2025 line-up includes German premieres of Fatih Akin’s Amrum, Jafar Panahi’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident, Sho Miyake’s Locarno Golden Leopard winner Two Seasons, Two Strangers, Kelly Reichardt’s heist movie The Mastermind, Ann Émond’s romantic comedy Amour Apocalypse and Dominik Moll’s detective film Dossier 137.

Several titles which recently premiered in Venice - Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia, Paolo Sorrentino’s Grazia and Stephan Komanderev’s Made in EU - will also be shown for the first time in Germany at the Filmfest.

This year’s “Contemporary Cinema in Focus” sidebar is dedicated to the filmmakers Julia Ducournau and Kleber Mendonca Filho, with the German premieres of their latest films Alpha and The Secret Agent as well as screenings of previous productions such as as Titane and Bacurau.

Meanwhile, the Douglas Sirk Award, named after the director born in Hamburg as Detlef Sierck, will go this year to Belgium’s Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The brothers will receive the honour ahead of the German premiere of their latest feature film Young Mothers.

Previous recipients of the Douglas Sirk Award include Andrea Arnold, Jafar Panahi, Wim Wenders, David Cronenberg, Tilda Swinton, Léos Carax, and Sandra Hüller.

Awards with prize money totalling €145,000 will be presented to films screening in the festival’s various sections.

A “Day of Free Entrance” will be held for the second year running on October 3, the Day of Germany Unity, thanks to financial support from Hamburg’s Culture and Media Authority.

This initiative will again allow festival-goers to obtain free tickets for the screenings of a selection of films from the Filmfest programme at 15 festival venues during the day.

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