The Goethe-Institut's KinoFest, its annual German film festival, is making its way back to Manila this October 15-18, 2026. For its fifth edition, the festival will be hosted for the first time at GH Ortigas Cinema, Greenhills Mall in San Juan.
This year's program is an exploration of how people's lives are shaped by the spaces they move through and the burdens they carry, from their respective families and workplaces to their communities and the histories they inherit. Across stories of faith, memory, justice, care, and belonging, the films ask a central question: How do we create lives of our own when the realities around us are often imposed upon us?
Opening KinoFest 2026 is Rose (2026), the latest film by Markus Schleinzer, featuring award-winning actress Sandra Hüller in a remarkable lead performance. Presented in striking black and white, the film follows a woman striving to shape her own destiny within the rigid constraints of a historical society, exploring themes of identity, freedom, and self-determination. Hüller's powerful performance sets the tone for a festival that reflects on resilience, agency, and the search for belonging.
The main lineup brings together a diverse selection of films, including I Understand Your Displeasure (Ich verstehe Ihren Unmut), Sound of Falling (In die Sonne schauen), In Good Faith (Gotteskinder), Prosecution (Staatsschutz), Trial of Hein (Der Heimatlose), The Family Approach (Im Prinzip Familie), Circusboy (Zirkuskind), Luisa, and Heidi: Rescue of the Lynx (Heidi: Rettung der Luchse). Together, these films offer contemporary perspectives on work, family, belief, community, and the ways individuals navigate the social and institutional forces around them.
A special highlight of this year's Manila program is KinoFest Special: Intersections on October 17, 2026, at 4:00 PM in Cinema 1, GH Ortigas Cinema, Greenhills Mall. Bringing contemporary Philippine cinema into conversation with the German lineup, the program features Invisible Labor by Joanne Cesario, Raging (Rumaragasa) by Ryan Machado, and the Philippine premiere of Body Count by Cris Bringas. Together, the films explore themes of memory, labor, trauma, intimacy, and place, demonstrating how the questions raised throughout the festival resonate far beyond national borders.
The screening will be followed by an in-person talkback with the filmmakers, moderated by Julian Fuchs, Director of the Goethe-Institut Philippines, inviting audiences to engage in a conversation about the stories and experiences that connect people across cultures.
KinoFest 2026 lineup in detail:
Rose (2026)
Director: Markus Schleinzer
Cast: Sandra Hüller, Caro Braun, Marisa Growaldt, Godehard Giese, Augustino Renken
In 17th-century Germany, a scarred stranger arrives in a village claiming to be heir to a farmstead. Despite initial suspicion, he's accepted as a hardworking, Godfearing man his belonging built on a lie. The true story of a con artist born a woman who deceived an entire village.
Ich verstehe Ihren Unmut | I Understand Your Displeasure (2026)
Director: Kilian Armando Friedrich
Cast: Sabine Thalau, Nada Kosturin, Werner Posselt, Sadibou Diabang, Nigyar Velagic
Heike, 59, manages a cleaning company team under constant pressure to satisfy clients and her boss. When a powerful subcontractor threatens to pull his support unless she gives his team more work, Heike must decide whether to sacrifice one of her own employees to survive the job's demands.
Staatsschutz | Prosecution (2026)
Director: Faraz Shariat
Cast: Chen Emilie Yan, Julia Jentsch, Alev Irmak, Arnd Klawitter, Sebastian Urzendowsky
Prosecutor Seyo Kim survives a racially motivated attack and, defying official orders, conducts her own investigation. She brings a perpetrator to trial and uncovers a far-right network—and in the process learns just how much the state she serves applies double standards.
Der Heimatlose | Trial of Hein (2026)
Director: Kai Stänicke
Cast: Paul Boche, Philip Froissant, Emilia Schüle, Stephanie Amarell
After 14 years, Hein returns to his home island - but no one recognizes him, not even his former friend Friedemann. A village court is set to determine who he is. But the more contradictions that surface, the more desperately Hein searches for evidence to support his own memories.
Luisa (2025)
Director: Julia Roesler
Cast: Celina Scharff, Trixi Strobel, Dennis Seidel, Eva Löbau, Bernd Hölscher, Katharina Bromka, Hadi Khanjanpour, Martin Schnippa, Peter Lohmeyer, Michael Schuhmacher
Luisa lives in a residential facility for people with disabilities. She is 22 years old and curious about life. Unnoticed, Luisa becomes increasingly quiet; daily life in the residential group continues as usual until it is unexpectedly discovered that Luisa is pregnant. She doesn’t tell anyone what happened; she remains silent. Sexual abuse is suspected. A drama. A true crime.
Im Prinzip Familie | The Family Approach (2024)
Director: Daniel Abma
Almost like family, but always temporary: caught between parental love, bureaucracy, and child welfare services, three caregivers do everything they can to create a home for the children. A film about the superpower of raising a child and family in all its forms.
Zirkuskind | Circusboy (2025)
Directors: Julia Lemke, Anna Koch
Every day is magical when the circus is your playground. Santino, a circus kid constantly on the move, listens to his great-grandfather’s stories as his own life is just beginning. A documentary road movie woven with animation, Circusboy follows one of the last nomadic families in Germany through a full year and four seasons— capturing the joys and struggles of a life without a fixed address, and the enduring power of belonging.
Gotteskinder | In Good Faith (2024)
Director: Frauke Lodders
Cast: Flora Li Thiemann, Serafin Mishiev, Michelangelo Fortuzzi, Mark Waschke, Bettina Zimmermann, Thimo Meitner, Martin Lindow, Luna Schaller
Two sheltered siblings from a conservative household face personal revelations that challenge their family's strict beliefs, forcing them to navigate between authenticity and tradition.
In die Sonne schauen | Sound of Falling (2025)
Director: Mascha Schilinski
Cast: Lena Urzendowsky, Luise Heyer, Filip Schnack, Lea Drinda, Susanne Wuest, Luzia Oppermann, Konstantin Lindhorst, Lucas Prisor, Bärbel Schwarz, Hanna Heckt, Ninel Geiger
Four adolescent girls each spend their youth in the same farmhouse over the last century. Though separated by decades, resonances between their lives emerge: their desires and distress, secrets and truths, encounters with another’s gaze and defiant gaze in return.
Heidi: Rettung der Luchse | Heidi: Rescue of the Lynx (2025)
Director: Toby Schwarz
Free spirited Heidi faces forces beyond her years to protect her Grandfather and the alpine wilderness she loves from a ruthless businessman and the hungry jaws of his new saw mill.
KinoFest Specials: Intersections lineup:
Rumaragasa | Raging (2025)
Director: Ryan Machado
Cast: Elijah Canlas, Ron Angeles, Reynald Raisel Santos, Glenn Sevilla Mas
A young man’s quest for truth and justice intertwines with a plane crash mystery, uncovering a sinister plot that propels his desire to be heard but also threatens his community.
Body Count (2026)
Director: Cris Bringas
Paul, a Filipino nurse in Berlin whose brother was killed in Duterte’s drug war, hooks up with David, a former IDF soldier who has just fled Israel. They press record. As they tangle in bed, they discover a shared language of queerness and violence. But as their pillow talk deepens, intimacy fails to redeem brutality, revealing the living remains of wars both ongoing and never-ending.
Invisible Labor (2023)
Director: Joanne Cesario
Cast: Cay Piedad, Maribel Piedad, Rosb Guzman, Mary Ann Castillo, Julie Ann Gutierrez
Marcos then, Marcos now. Filipino workers unite and lead the struggle for economic and political rights, determined to shape the course of history. In between, a janitor painstakingly rewinds videotapes featuring these struggles, unknowingly aiding in the preservation of history.
Screening Schedule:
October 15, 2026 (Cinema 1)
7:00 PM Rose
October 16, 2026 (Cinema 1)
1:30 PM I Understand Your Displeasure
3:00 PM Prosecution
5:30 PM The Family Approach
7:30 PM Sound of Falling
October 17, 2026
12:00 PM Heide: The Return of the Lynx (Cinema 1)
12:30 PM Trial of Hein (The Screening Room)
2:00 PM Circusboy (Cinema 1)
3:00 PM Luisa (The Screening Room)
4:00 PM KinoFest Special: Raging, Body Count, Invisible Labor (Cinema 1)
5:00 PM Prosecution (The Screening Room)
7:30 PM In Good Faith (The Screening Room)
October 18, 2026
1:00 PM Circusboy (Cinema 1) | Rose (The Screening Room)
3:00 PM Heide: The Return of the Lynx (Cinema 1) | Sound of Falling (The Screening Room)
5:00 PM Luisa (Cinema 1)
5:30 PM I Understand Your Displeasure (The Screening Room)
7:00 PM Trial of Hein (Cinema 1) | The Family Approach (The Screening Room)
All screenings of KinoFest 2026 will take place from October 15 to 18, 2026, at GH Ortigas Cinema, Greenhills Mall, Cinema 1 and The Screening Room. Admission is FREE on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets may be claimed at the KinoFest booth near Cinema 1 beginning one (1) hour before each screening.
KinoFest 2026 is jointly organized by the Goethe-Instituts in Southeast Asia and the Pacific and continues its commitment to fostering intercultural dialogue through film. By bringing German and Filipino perspectives together on screen, the festival invites audiences to reflect on how we love, care, belong, and imagine new possibilities for the future.
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