sehsüchte is the largest international student film festival in Europe.

The festival’s history began in 1972 with the FDJ Student Film Days at the University of Film and Television (HFF) “Konrad Wolf“. After the Wende and the virtual disappearance of the festival, the “Audio-visual Media Studies” students at the HFF brought the festival back to the silver screen in 1995 and dubbed it sehsüchte. Since its reincarnation, the festival has consistently attained prominence as an artistic forum and intercultural platform in the world of young international film.

The festival organizers’ aim is not only to provide young international filmmakers with a forum for their films, but also to encourage the interchange among each other as well as with high-profile professionals from the film and media industry. At the same time, sehsüchte is a public event in which a special attraction lies in the close contact between the audience and the filmmakers. The substantial supporting program ensures that sehsüchte is, above all, an audience-centered festival.

We’d like to give a great deal of well-deserved thanks to our sponsors, partners and supporters, of whom some have accompanied the sehsüchte Festival and made it possible for many years. Thank you!

The festival’s tradition will be enthusiastically carried out by a new team with the vision of maintaining the festival’s high profile and thereby achieving greater success.

History

1972
The first time the student film days are held as the “FDJ Student Days” in the former GDR, they are less a festival in the actual sense of the word and more an academic exhibition.

1977
Only five years later, film schools from “friendly countries” participate.

1985
In the mid 1980s, by which time the student film days had already evolved into the biggest student film festival in the Eastern Bloc and an inside tip for fans from all over the world, films from the former West Germany are also screened.

1990
After the Wende in 1990, the student film days are held two more times as an independent event before they are integrated in the new Potsdam Film Festival.

1995
Revived by students from the audiovisual media studies program at the Film and Television Academy Konrad Wolf, the festival with the new name sehsüchte enters a new phase pointing toward the future.

2002
The flame is born. The logo becomes the distinctive sehsüchte trademark.

2004
The Film and Television Academy turns fifty. sehsüchte celebrates this with a retrospective. What is more, sehsüchte marks ten years as the festival under this name.

2005
2005 is the first year for the Focus, which sets a regional emphasis and runs as a special program outside the competition. Every year, a different country or region is emphasized, the cinematic output of which would otherwise most likely remain obscure to most of the public.

Students from the audio-visual media Master’s program are entirely responsible for the organization of sehsüchte as an important part of their curriculum. sehsüchte provides students an ideal opportunity to not only apply theory but also realize their own ideas directly at the academy.

And so, the 2010 sehsüchte team 2010 is again looking forward to numerous international film talents and their works.