New Old Home – Filmfestival Back at the Schloßtheater

The Filmfestival Münster changes its residence. After ten years at the Cineplex, the festival with tradition returns to where it was hosted in the 90s already: to the Schloßtheater. From October 4^th to 8^th more than a hundred filmmakers will present their new works at the 17^th edition of the Filmfestival in the building at the Kanonierplatz in Münster.

The move aims at the strengthening of the Schloßtheater as a festival cinema. “We want to further enhance the Schloßtheater’s profile as a festival location”, says Carsten Happe. Together with Risna Olthuis, he does not only run the Filmfestival on behalf of the Filmwerkstatt. Both are also at the head of the recently in town established ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival. In the past year, the festival moved from Berlin to Münster and docked immediately at the Schloßtheater. The ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival is supposed to take place in the even years, while the Filmfestival Münster is presented at the Schloßtheater in the odd years. The Schloßtheater is also home to the Children’s Film Festival which takes place every year during the autumn holidays.

“During the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, we examined the Schloßtheater as location for the greater Filmfestival and considered it suitable”, says Happe. The Schloßtheater is equipped with three cinema halls and 440 seats in total. “These are fewer halls than we played at in the Cineplex, but we will try to maintain the programme variety nevertheless”, explains Happe.

The Filmfestival Münster started out as a short film festival named “Filmzwerge” (“Film Dwarfs”) at the arthouse Cinema. At the beginning of the 1990s the festival moved to the Schloßtheater where it took place for the last time in 2003. In 2005, the 11^th Filmfestival was hosted in the now defunct cinema Stadt New York, in 2007 the festival changed its location to the Cineplex.

By now the Filmfestival has become a large audience festival for all of Westphalia and a branch venue for the film scene in North Rhine-Westphalia and the Netherlands. The feature film competition for up-and-coming filmmakers from Germany and Europe is at the centre of the festival, as well as the short film competition which is for more than 35 years now an integral part of the programme. Until June 15^th, submissions for both competitions were welcome.

The “Westphalia Connection” presents the latest works from Münster and the surrounding area, while the in Germany unique emphasis on the Netherlands shows recent productions from our neighbouring country. In 2017, the festival management is expecting once more around 6,000 visitors.