German Currents Film Festival Celebrates 20th Anniversary in LA, IMDb reports
German Currents celebrated its 20th anniversary in Los Angeles from October 8 to 13, 2026, bringing acclaimed German cinema and filmmakers to the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre, Los Feliz 3, the Wende Museum, the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, and the Gardena Cinema, IMDb reported.
Opening Night and the Thomas Mann Road Trip
The milestone edition opened with the red-carpet West Coast Premiere of Fatherland by director Paweł Pawlikowski, starring Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler. The screening at the Aero Theatre was followed by a conversation with Pawlikowski, who discussed his vision for the project. Producers asked him to direct a biopic of Thomas Mann, but he chose instead to focus on a particular historical event: the 1948 return of Thomas Mann to Germany after sixteen years of exile in the United States.
In the film, Mann speaks to both the free West and the Soviet East, justifying his self-imposed exile and Goethe’s democratic vision. His daughter Erika Mann acts as his chauffeur and assistant, though in reality his wife Katia Mann accompanied him. Cinematographer Łukasz Żal captured the black-and-white visuals across a fictionalized road trip from US-dominated Frankfurt to Soviet-controlled Weimar.
East German Legacies on Screen
Of the seven award-winning feature films, two documentaries, two youth films, and the short film program featured at the festival, the sources do not specify the exact number of films dealing with East Germany.
Laura Laabs presented the Southern California premiere of her debut fiction feature, Red Stars Upon the Field (Rote Sterne überm Feld). Set in Bad Kleinen, the story follows Tine as she investigates a mysterious skeleton in the moors that connects a Wehrmacht deserter in 1944, a collective farmer during the final days of the GDR, and a secret service mission against the Red Army Faction.
Bernd Sahling presented the documentary It’ll Be Ok (Alles wird gut), which captures four years in the life of Michael, a young punk in late-1980s East Berlin who applies to leave the country. Sahling also presented his family feature and his youth film as part of the festival’s educational outreach.
Franke and Moltzen Win German Film Critics Award
The sources do not mention Radlmaier or the film Phantoms of July (Sehnsucht in Sangerhausen).
The sources do not mention Constanze Klaue or the film Punching the World (Mit der Faust in die Welt Schlagen). Newcomers Franke and Moltzen received the German Film Critics’ Award 2026 for Best Acting for their performances in the film, which was inspired by Lukas Rietzschel’s novel.
Closing Night at the Aero
German Currents concludes its 20th anniversary program on Monday night with the U.S. premiere of Wolfgang Becker’s final film, Berlin Hero (Der Held vom Bahnhof), at the Aero Theatre. Based on a novel and set in 2019 near the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the film stars Micha Hartung as a former East German railway worker whose past is uncovered by a tabloid journalist. Screenings at the festival are free with reservations.
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